


The Right Tree

by Roselightfairy, TAFKAB (orphan_account)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Angst, Boating, Depression, Despair, Drowning Trigger Warning, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Elf Culture & Customs, Eventual Hopeful Ending, Geography, Gimli has an IQ of -143, Hurricane, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Miscommunicating morons, Past Dwalin/Thorin Oakenshield - Freeform, Pining, Pippin should be gagged and tied up and sent home in a sack, References to suicidal ideation, Rejection, Sea-longing, Unrequited Love, Whump, angst angst MORE ANGST OH GOD THE ANGST SRSLY HOLY SHIT ANGST, but not in a funny way this time, gratuitous emotional torture, the trouble with fundamental monogamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 02:17:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 51,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17634131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TAFKAB
Summary: After hearing the gulls on the shores of Pelargir, Legolas seeks comfort and solace-- and Gimli is only too happy to oblige him.  But the failure to negotiate the terms of a one-night stand instead plunges Legolas into a veritable hell of unrequited love and longing.  Will Gimli come to value the gift he was given-- before it’s too late?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Like Lovesick Blues, this story was inspired by [a Tumblr post.](https://spork-of-rae.tumblr.com/post/176047635181/hc-about-legolas-and-gimlis-first-fuck-theyve) Some of you may have seen this particular one over the summer, about a scenario for Legolas and Gimli having a one-night stand that leads to them accidentally getting married. The author of that post has written a fic about it (linked in the post), but when the two of us read the headcanon, before discovering the fic, we both immediately latched onto the potential for soul-crushing ANGST in it… and this story ensued. The first couple of chapters follow the headcanon very closely, and then we took the idea to new depths of misery and despair.
> 
> We cannot urge you strongly enough to read the tags and to skip this story if you’re uncomfortable with them. This is not a comfortable story, and while there is a bit of hope at the end, there’s very little comfort up until then. It is heavy with unrequited love, pining, guilt, and depression; it made us very sad to write and will probably make you very sad to read.
> 
> But hey, if you're into that kind of thing, COME WALLOW IN THE PAIN WITH US.

“Legolas?”

The voice was faint in Legolas’s ears, as though it came from a great distance or through a thick wall of water, and he hardly recognized the sound as his own name. Indeed, he hardly recognized the sound at all through the haze that surrounded his mind, a haze of strangely-mingled grief and bliss, both emotions so strong he hardly knew himself, let alone the world around him—

“Legolas?”

The voice again, sharper this time, and against his wishes the fog began to clear away from Legolas’s mind. He knew not why, but he fought it, pushing back clarity as it threatened to sweep away confusion; Legolas wrapped himself in the sea-mist like a protective blanket, breathing in salt spray and drawing back into the comforting roar of waves in his ears—

“Legolas!”

The mist burned away as though under a sudden sunrise, and the bliss dissipated along with it. His eyes cleared, and he looked around—

At the corpse-strewn shore of Pelargir, the aftermath of their bloody battle. At the slippery, treacherous shale of the stony beach that sloped down to the water, and at the dusty road they had just traveled. At the concerned face of Aragorn, who had been calling his name. At Middle-Earth.

The pain came then, undiluted now by any pretense, any distraction: driving into him, piercing him more adeptly than any steel-edged weapon, flaying him open to his very heart. He could not stand against it; with a gasp, he fell to his knees.

“Legolas!” A new voice now, edged with concern, somehow more comforting than the last.

He looked over, his gaze drawn in the direction of the voice like iron to a magnet. Gimli was standing beside Aragorn, taller than Legolas now that he knelt. The dwarf reached out and laid a hand on Legolas’s shoulder, warm and heavy—like the blanket of mist, an unspoken promise of protection from from grief. Legolas leaned into it, and found indeed that the pain lessened.

And yet it was still there, aching and throbbing so that Legolas could hardly bear to meet his friends’ eyes. But they had been calling his name— he ought to say something.

“Gimli?” he croaked.

Gimli’s face relaxed into a relieved smile, and Legolas at least found space for some gladness at the sight. “Are you back with us?”

Was he? “I think so,” he managed.

“What happened?” Aragorn’s voice was rough with concern. “You are not yourself, my friend.”

And although he had never expected it, never imagined it, Legolas knew exactly what had happened. “I understand the Lady’s rhyme now, Aragorn,” he said. “She spoke not of death after all, but of—“ He almost did not dare to name it, but what would be the use in pretending he did not know? “Of the sea-longing.”

He could hear the words clearly in his head now, Gandalf’s voice, but rich with the tones of the Lady’s spirit. _If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore/Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more._ He had not understood her words at the time, but it all made sense now-- now, in time for him to wish that it did not. “It was the gulls,” he managed to say aloud. “The sound of their voices opened my ears to the song of the sea.” He could still hear them, though he knew not if it was in his ears or his soul: raucous cries joining in a cacophonous chorus of impossible beauty and yearning.

And what fortune, at least, to have a friend who understood elvish affairs. Aragorn’s face grew grave and sad as he understood. “I am sorry,” he said.

“As am I,” Legolas managed. “But I am well enough in body, so you need waste no more time fussing over me.”

“Sea-longing?” interrupted Gimli. “What is that?”

Aragorn cast a look between them, his expression turning strangely thoughtful. “I will let Legolas explain,” he said. “I have secured lodging for us at an inn in town, that we might be well-rested before we sail to Gondor tomorrow.” He looked between them again, and then nodded, as though to himself. “You may both have the night to yourselves, and adjoining rooms, if you wish it.”

He was gone before the first syllable of Gimli’s protest had left his mouth, leaving the two of them to stare at one another.

Gimli broke the silence first, sighing and grumbling. “Do you remember the days when he told us his thoughts? It seems they were not so long ago.” He snapped his fingers. “Ah, that is because they were not.”

Legolas tried a laugh, and found that he could manage a weak chuckle. The pain of the longing was less, he found, when he focused his attention on Gimli: on his deep, rich voice, his dark, gleaming eyes. In the last days Legolas had found himself gazing long on those eyes, and now he yearned to dive into them. Every part of Gimli seemed protection and anchor, something Legolas could cling to even with the strongest swells of the sea in his heart.

Gimli’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “If Aragorn will not tell me, you had best do so,” he said. “Come, let us go together to the inn Aragorn spoke of, and then you may tell me what this sea-longing is, and why it pains you so."


	2. Chapter 2

“It is not a longing for the sea itself,” Legolas said. It was easier to speak now than it had been on the battlefield, now that he wore clean clothing and held a mug of ale between both hands, but he still faltered, hearing the words fall from his mouth. “It is the sea that activates the longing for Aman, the home of elves beyond Middle-earth.” It was difficult to speak, even away from the gulls, but Gimli sat beside him, listening intently, and it gave him strength at least to try. “The longing is… I cannot say it properly, for I have never been to Aman, and I know not what I seek. Yet the cry of the gulls awakened in my heart a need to be there, and I find myself like a fish removed from water, as if I cannot breathe-- or no, as if I were not removed from the water, but rather that the water in which I have always lived happily ceased to be enough to nourish me, and I knew I must leave it and find the source of that call, for only there might I fill my lungs again and be sustained.”

Gimli frowned at him and Legolas sighed, feeling his failure to grasp the notion and convey it to Gimli; how could he articulate something that was as fleeting and ephemeral as the wingbeat of a moth, and yet as irresistible, as inexorable as the tide? The tide, which even now turned up on the shore and carried boats to the east, and toward the Straight Road….

He shook his head, returning himself to his surroundings, the quiet noises of others in the inn, Gimli’s attentive look. “Perhaps it is in some way like the craving that drove Thorin Oakenshield to reclaim Erebor,” he said, and fell silent, struggling again with thoughts he hardly understood enough to explain.

Gimli placed a hand on his shoulder once more, the warm weight steadying. “I do not know if I understand,” he said, “but if it is anything compared to that longing, then you have my sympathy, for whatever that is worth.”

“It is worth everything,” Legolas said. Indeed, he felt more strongly than ever the truth of those words, for he knew not if he could have spoken as much to any other. He had not needed to explain to Aragorn, who knew of the sea-longing if he could not understand it, and he would not have desired to speak of it to any other-- but it felt more manageable here, with Gimli’s grip on his shoulder and solid presence at his side. “Everything,” he repeated very quietly, and he looked into Gimli’s face once more, and it seemed suddenly as though all the comfort in the world could be found there.

Gimli gazed back at him, and Legolas’s breath caught in his chest. There was a look in Gimli’s eyes that he had never seen there before, a look beyond his usual expression of mingled fondness and feigned irritation. A look that-- but no, surely he was imagining it. He could not let himself believe it, and yet his ragged-edged heart surged suddenly in hope, the scattered mess of his emotions collected in a wave of yearning-- but this time, a yearning for something right in front of him, something close enough to touch.

Daring, he reached out and laid a hand over Gimli’s heart.

Gimli smiled and laid his palm over Legolas’s hand. “You need taking out of your head,” he said gruffly. “You are grown melancholy and fey, Legolas; you are not yourself.” His thumb stirred on Legolas’s hand, a caress that made the elf’s heart flutter and his cheeks heat. And perhaps it was only the ale, but Gimli’s eyes glowed with a heat that stole Legolas’s breath away.

“Come,” Gimli said, his voice falling to rumble low in his chest. “We have danced about this too long, do you not think so? Let us share a bed at last, while we yet may. For who knows what tomorrow will bring? It may be that we will see the sunrise, but not the sunset, on that or any day henceforth, until Sauron be brought down-- or until he be victorious.”

That callused thumb stroked fire along the back of Legolas’s hand and Legolas found it hard to draw his breath. “Aye,” he said, his voice barely a husk. “I should like that very much. But…” his head was swimming; he could hardly form words. All the blood in his body seemed to have rushed south, and indeed the sea longing was the farthest thing from his mind now. “...Do you know of the ways of elves, Gimli- _nin_?”

Gimli chuckled and raised Legolas’s palm to his mouth; his lips were as soft as his beard and mustache were coarse. “Aye, I know all that I need.” His tongue stole out and dotted liquid heat against Legolas’s palm. “And I have what is needed, as well, for this day comes not unlooked for.”

“Then let us go,” Legolas whispered, his heart soaring. “I will gladly share your bed.”

They left the common room together, and were seen no more until the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

Legolas slipped from dream to waking so easily that he almost wondered if he had found reverie at all during the night. If he had, the dreams had been nearly indistinguishable from waking: dreams of warm dark eyes and warmer skin, of strong arms around him and long, luxurious hair beneath his hands, and calloused fingers, and--

It was the morning that they were to sail to Minas Tirith, he knew; they were in the middle of a doomed war; the day before, he had heard the gulls and the call to Aman. And yet Gimli lay still beside him, tucked against his side with his hair strewn over the pillows and one arm thrown casually over Legolas’s waist, his powerful, muscular body gone soft and loose in deep sleep, and Legolas could not help but smile.

How could it be that his greatest grief had brought him his greatest joy? He had expected, the night before, to find no comfort after the cry of the gulls-- and yet Gimli had held him and kissed him and touched him until his own cries drowned out the song of the sea in his heart. And now he lay here, curled so peacefully into Legolas’s body, and he was more home than Legolas could find anywhere, even across the sea.

“My husband,” he whispered, just to say it, and shivered with delight at the words in his voice.

Gimli barely stirred at the sound. Legolas could not resist the urge to stretch, though, feeling a delightful soreness and lassitude in his limbs. He raised his arms, taking joy in the prints of Gimli’s mouth upon his flesh. He bore many love bites, for their night had been long and the dwarf’s endurance very great. It was not surprising he slept so deeply in the aftermath of such vigorous activity.

Legolas pressed a kiss upon his husband’s sleeping brow and slid from under his arm, moving with care so as not to disturb him. The sun had yet to show her face above the horizon, and he was far to the south and out of his reckoning, but it was tradition to serve a new spouse tea upon the morning after they were wed. Perhaps Legolas might find the herbs he needed if he ventured abroad and sought within the gardens of men before their owners awakened.

He dressed himself in stealth, quickly braided his hair to show that he was now wed-- he would have to teach the pattern to Gimli later, so they might braid one another-- and crept from their room with a song in his heart to match the one upon his lips. He sang softly to himself as he ventured out into the township, plucking a bit of mint here and clover there as he leaned over garden fences, hoping he might find a piece of licorice root if he sought it with enough care.

He sang of joy and feasting, of times of celebration under the boughs of the greenwood, and of hope for the future of all goodly creatures. And if the gulls wheeled overhead, crying their lonely call, he could smile and dismiss the pang that rose within his breast, and tell them “I tarry yet a while, and I will come later, when my time with my love is spent.”

Licorice was not to be found in any gardens-- but he found an herb-seller who opened early and had a good stock, so he finished his preparations there and returned to the inn, where the sleepy maids were glad enough to give him a kettle and direct him to a hook over the fire where he might brew his herbs, if only it meant he would let them be about their morning chores undisturbed.

And all the while he thought of Gimli, his heart singing, and a smile graced his lips as he mingled the herbs and brewed them together the way his mother had taught him when he was small. He longed indeed to return to his love’s bed, but when he turned with the cup in his hands, Gimli was before him, just leaving the stair that climbed to the guest rooms.

His husband bore nearly as many bruises and love-marks as Legolas, and had carelessly left the throat of his tunic undone-- or perhaps he had done it meaning for them to be seen so that Aragorn would know they were wed, and would rejoice with them.

Legolas’s feet barely touched the boards as he crossed the floor to Gimli and offered him the cup. “For you, _hervenn_!” He left his hand on the cup for just a moment too long, so that their fingers touched; unable to stop himself, he bent down to press a swift kiss to Gimli’s mouth.

It was well that he had not let go of the tea, for Gimli lost his hold on it as he jerked in surprise, and would have upended the boiling water all over himself if Legolas had not pulled it back just in time. “Legolas!” Gimli hissed, glancing about as though to ensure no one was near. Legolas steadied the cup and frowned, some of the buoyancy leaving his heart. “What are you-- the others could come down at any moment!”

“I… yes.” No longer did he dance on the very air; Legolas felt as though it had threatened to give way beneath him. Was Gimli ashamed of him? But he had thought… “I did not think--” But perhaps it was simple dwarvish modesty; Gimli had long been unwilling to remove his clothing before his companions, even to bathe. “I am sorry if I was disrespectful of your customs.”

“You-- what?” Now Gimli frowned, but seemed to recover himself more quickly. “No, you were not disrespectful, I only thought-- I suppose it is something of a custom, but…” Perhaps he had not recovered quickly after all; he was flustered and stuttering, his usual eloquence absent. “I was not expecting such a greeting. I am glad to see you in better spirits, but I am not accustomed to such… demonstrations.”

“Oh.” Legolas gazed down at the tea in his hands, trying to bolster his rapidly-sinking heart. “Well, that is all right-- we need not be public with our affections, if you would rather not.” Gimli was still looking at him in utter confusion, and Legolas could bear it no longer. “But come, let us sit.” He led Gimli to a table and set the tea down, so there would be no more danger of spills. “Will you not drink this, at least? It is traditional among my people, and I made it for you.”

“I-- very well,” Gimli stammered, still seeming quite out of countenance. He accepted the cup and stared into its depths with an obvious reluctance that made Legolas fold his hands in his lap. “What is it made of?”

“I brewed it of mint and clover, with licorice root and other sweet herbs,” Legolas said, his voice growing softer as each word left him. Gimli did not respond even to the listing of love-herbs, and Legolas might almost doubt the dwarf’s word that he knew of Elvish customs, had he not trusted Gimli with his very life.

“Ah,” Gimli said, and sipped, polite, then set the cup aside. “What have the maids prepared for breakfast? I could eat the nether parts of a dead dragon!”

Legolas sat quite still. “I could ask,” he ventured, but Gimli’s attention had already drifted.

“Ah, Aragorn!” Now there was enthusiasm, the first true note of it Legolas had heard since Gimli first appeared. “Come and join us! The elf has brewed us a posset of posies and weeds, and mayhap you will like it, but as for me, I will seek the kitchen-maids and order porridge and ham!” He blustered out into the kitchen, shouting for service.

Aragorn laughed and came to sit, laying his hand upon Legolas’s shoulder, but when he lifted the cup he frowned. “My friend,” he said slowly. “Is this the tea of _veru,_ or do I mistake the recipe?”

Legolas could no longer deceive himself. “Aragorn,” he said, and his voice shook as much as his hands. “I have made a terrible mistake.” He switched to Sindarin, fearful of being heard-- and suddenly understanding Gimli’s reluctance to share open affection this morning. “I have married Gimli, believing it what we both wished, and yet I learn this morning that he does not wish it.”

Aragorn looked up at where Gimli had disappeared. “Did he know what he did?” he said in the same language. “Perhaps he merely does not understand.”

“I asked him if he knew the ways of elves, and he said that he did,” said Legolas. “I should have questioned further, I suppose, but I was--” He hesitated, remembering the circumstances of the night before: the drink, the sea, the look in Gimli’s eyes that had seemed to turn his entire body into fire, the look that seemed so far away from him now, “--not myself.”

Aragorn frowned for a moment, as though thinking, but then he chuckled and shook his head. “I suppose you were not,” he said, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Well, that is easily remedied. Merely because he does not know does not mean that he wishes it not. I am sure that when you tell him, he will assure you otherwise.”

“You are sure?” Legolas looked doubtfully towards the kitchen. He had been so certain, it was true, and yet-- this morning, even if he had not known of their wedding, Gimli had not acted like a lover who wished, one day, to be married.

But Aragorn’s smile was so reassuring that Legolas could not prevent the tiny flame of hope from flickering to life in his heart. “We will ask him,” he said. “See, he comes now.”

“We?” said Legolas, but he could only half hear his own voice. Gimli had emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray laden with food, as cheerful as before and seemingly recovered from his surprise. So perhaps…

“Ah, thank you for the breakfast!” said Aragorn, switching back to Westron, his voice still thick with suppressed laughter, as Gimli set the tray on the table and returned to his seat. Aragorn looked over its contents and then reached out and plucked the piece of ham that Gimli had just been about to take for himself. He laughed once more as Gimli turned an indignant glare on him, took a bite of the ham, and said, with his mouth full, “Legolas has something to tell you.”

Gimli turned away from Aragorn at once. “You do?” he said, frowning. But Legolas could not bring himself to answer; all his words seemed frozen in his throat, and he could not remember how to speak.

“Go on,” Aragorn prompted him, and Legolas licked his lips.

“Gimli,” he said faintly, “when you said last night that you understood our customs…”

But he stopped; Gimli was still staring at him in confusion, and Aragorn was laughing harder than ever. “Westron, Legolas,” he said. “If you want him to understand.”

Mortified, Legolas realized that he had spoken in Sindarin without even realizing it-- as though he were still speaking to Aragorn alone. Or perhaps he did not wish Gimli to understand, after all. He could understand what the other two said, but when he reached for words of his own, he found that he could not remember how to say them.

Aragorn rolled his eyes, and patted Legolas on the arm. “Well, if he will not say it, I will do it instead.” He grinned at Gimli, the smile of a man with his first entertainment in weeks. “Congratulations on your marriage, my friend.”

“Oh,” said Gimli faintly, head pivoting back and forth between them. “Is that-- oh.” He sat down abruptly. “I did not-- I--” his face paled. “Elf. I was drunk, and you were sorrowful. I meant only to--” His mouth worked for a moment, no sound emerging. “To cheer you,” he said at last. “After the manner of shield-brothers. I thought you meant only to ask if I knew the ways of bed-sharing between two males!”

Legolas watched Aragorn’s expectant smile slowly flatten, then fade.

“I had no thought of marriage,” Gimli tried to smile, and he too failed. “I am sorry if I have given offense!”

“Think nothing of it.” Oh, but Legolas felt as if his insides had vanished, leaving him hollow as a seashell, the very ebb and rush of his blood echoing the sigh of the waves in his ears. “It is understandable that you did not realize.” He reached for the cup of tea, and for the kettle. “Such things must happen from time to time when two so different as we are deep in drink and do not stop to think or to be prudent.” His voice was near to failing him; he could feel the tremor in his hands spreading upward.

The gulls. If he could, he would fly-- fly so far out to sea he might never find land again, and he would drop lifeless into the waves when he could fly no more. He forced his lips to curve into a smile and rose, holding himself together by brute force of will. _Grace of the kindler, preserve me now._

“I find I have no stomach for food. I will take the tea to my room and prepare my gear. We must depart anon-- the White City has sore need of us.”

Legolas fled with the kettle before he could dissolve into weeping or lose control of his limbs and collapse into a dismayed heap upon the floor. He had never unpacked the night before, but he would bathe himself as well as he might, and shoulder his pack and bow.

He set the kettle down upon the cold hearth in his room, only then realizing the handle was fire-hot, and had blistered his palm.

He flexed it slowly, the pain a dull thing, remote and unremarkable compared to the anguish in his heart.

He sat upon the edge of his bed and poured the cup full once-- twice-- again-- and in a daze, he drank down the cordial of his marriage. Despite the sweet licorice it tasted of ash and bitter wormwood, for his love was unwanted-- but he would finish it, for nothing else was left to him.

He owed duty to Aragorn, and to the Quest; he would see that duty done.

But then….

Let none hinder the son of Thranduil, for he would seek the Straight Road and be gone from this mortal world for ever. And if the Undying Lands offered him no peace or solace, he would go then to Mandos and plead to be shed of his foolish burden until the Second Singing woke him anew.


	4. Chapter 4

Gimli sat frozen on the bench, his tray of breakfast still laid out before him, but the scent of ham and eggs and porridge was no longer as appealing as it had been just moments ago. He felt transfixed exactly as he was, not even able to turn his head to watch as Legolas departed. Aragorn still sat beside him, silent, all his earlier amusement obviously fled to the same place as Gimli’s appetite.

He did not speak, so after a long moment, Gimli cleared his throat. “Marriage?” he repeated.

“It is the way of elves.” Aragorn sounded as stricken as Gimli felt. “Sharing a bed with another is their act of marriage.”

That was obvious enough-- but Gimli knew that his question had not invited any more illuminating answer. He supposed that he had half-hoped that Aragorn would tell him he had somehow misunderstood, that there might be some way of undoing the harm his words had done-- that his actions had done. If he could, he would turn back time, reel the sun and moon backwards across the sky, and undo his actions of last night. He would-- he would drink less, or he would not assume that he knew the answer to Legolas’s question, or he would offer him some other form of comfort--

Comfort. Surely Legolas would never come to him for that again.

“I am sorry,” said Aragorn. “I should not have pressed for him to tell you, only I thought-- well, I--” His voice died.

_He thought._ Gimli knew full well what he had thought, and the guilt of it sickened him. That he could have led his friends to believe-- that he could have so deceived Legolas that the elf would think--

“What barbaric custom is that?” he burst out, feeling suddenly as though he could spit venom. “Who do elves think they are, to prevent their people from ever engaging in love-play before marriage, to force them to wed merely so that they can--” He lost the words, but beside him, Aragorn shook his head sadly.

“It is not so simple as that,” he said. “It is not a question of law; it is how they are made. Elves do not desire ‘love-play,’ as you call it, until they desire to wed. They do not wish to engage in any bedsport until,” he wet his lips, and if they had been speaking of anything else, Gimli would have laughed to see the future king of Gondor so uncomfortable, “until they have fallen in love.”

_Fallen in love._ Gimli’s anger left him with the hiss of leaking air, until he felt deflated and limp; it was all he could do to keep his head from sinking forward. And that was it, was it not? That was what none of them had said aloud, but what all of them knew, and could never forget.

Though he would never have thought it, though he had not seen it— if all that had been said this morning was true, then Legolas had fallen in love with him.

And Gimli--

Legolas was his dearest friend, grown dearer more quickly than any other shield-brother he had had in the past, yes; he was a stalwart warrior and an honest soul, yes; but-- but husband? Love?

Feeling as if he had been punched in the gut, Gimli arose, leaving his breakfast untouched. “I will--” he could not say what he might do to make it right. “I will apologize again,” he ventured, knowing even as he said it that it would only make Aragorn’s expression fall further. “And I will find a way to make amends. I will make for him weapons-- armor-- to rival the greatest ever wrought. But I,” he faltered and fell still. “Such poor tokens may never undo the harm I have done this day, I know. I will carry the shame of it to my grave,” he said. Turning then, he stamped upstairs, envisioning his heavy iron-shod boots crushing his own miserable skull beneath their treads.

He averted his gaze from the tumbled bed in which he had awakened alone, half-relieved to find Legolas gone already. His things were strewn over the floor; it was the work of but a moment to gather them, and another to fold them and replace them in his pack. He struggled to don his armor; it would have gone better with another set of hands to help, but he did not dare thump upon the wall to summon the elf.

There would be no more deft fingers to aid with fastening his buckles, no more songs or happy chatter to hasten his wakening.

Gimli sat abruptly before his table, staring into the embers of his fire. The silence from the room next to his own was absolute; he could not tell what the elf might be doing-- but he was not singing, and the emptiness of the air sent a pang keen as a blade through Gimli’s heart.

He arose after a moment-- Gondor’s need would brook no further delay. Settling his pack on his shoulders, he stomped downstairs, scowling at himself, and found the elf already there, his head bent toward Aragorn, speaking too softly to be overheard at first-- and then Gimli realized that he spoke once more in Elf-gabble, excluding Gimli from the conversation as he had not done since the days when first they met.

Legolas raised his head, his eyes shuttered and cold, and turned away, leading the party from the door and moving at a speed Gimli could hardly hope to match.

The gulls called in the cold morning air, raucous and suddenly as terrible as the cawing of carrion crows in Gimli’s ears. He remembered Legolas’s sorrowful words, and his halting description of the dreadful sea longing. It would be back again, and perhaps it would be worse; Gimli himself had made it so.

“We go to the harbor,” Aragorn said. “And there turn the pirate ships that we have commandeered upriver and sail to the aid of Gondor.” They found the Dúnedain waiting in the stableyard, and silently Aragorn’s men fell in behind them, leading the sailors and men they had enlisted to aid in the coming battle.

Legolas preceded them all, tall and proud, the last rays of the sun gleaming in his hair before it vanished behind gathering cloud-- a foul miasma born of Mordor and carried far abroad upon the airs. The elf led them to the harbor and boarded the first ship that waited at the docks.

He never once looked back to see if Gimli followed, as he had done so often during the crossing of Rohan.

*****

All that long journey, Legolas did not turn back to look at him.

Gimli supposed he could not blame him-- and he did not dare approach Legolas himself, for what could he say? He could not erase the pain he had caused this morning, when he knew not what he did; he had not the time or supplies to make the gifts he wished to craft, to offer in poor consolation. Indeed, he hardly had the time to think of what he might say-- such a cruel mistake demanded years of penance, and they might have only days left in their lives, days that would be better filled with fighting and planning to face the Enemy who demanded all their attention.

And he could not offer Legolas his heart in return, for to give a false promise of love would be worse insult even than that he had already given.

Gimli could not stop thinking on Aragorn’s words: that an elf would only feel desire when he also felt love. He did not know what love was, not truly, for dwarves loved only once in their lives-- but he was no stranger to desire. What he felt for Legolas-- there had been many like him: shield-brothers whom he trusted at his side in battle, whose strength and skill and comely appearance had attracted first his attention, then his admiration. It was not new to him, and whenever he had seen Legolas’s eyes stray to him, he had thought it the same. Had never dreamed that the elf might imagine there was something more.

For Gimli had to imagine there was something more than this. This-- want, attraction-- it was not the same as the deep, true love his kind prized so highly. That had to be something different: something more powerful, more consuming, more soul-piercing.

And if it was something different, Gimli could only think that he had already felt it.

His thoughts strayed, as they did so often, to the memories of Lothlórien. To the gleaming hair and sparkling eyes of the Lady Galadriel, to the kindness of her speech, to the gaze that had seemed to reach down into his very soul. To the thrill of hearing her speak directly to him, to the overwhelming joy at even the slightest hint of her attention, to the overpowering need for her to look upon him with pride.

Lust had not once infiltrated his thoughts or quickened his body. He needed it not-- he wished only to serve her.

If that-- if that was love--

Was that what Legolas felt for him?

His body went cold at the thought. For the joy he found with Legolas was in their friendship, the easy trust and companionship that had grown between them; in the shared rations and the small jests between serious moments. To think that all the while Legolas had felt something different-- that he had so toyed with his friend, without knowing it--

But he could do nothing for it. He could not change the friendship that he felt for Legolas, and he could not promise him an adoration that he did not feel. The best he could offer was the friendship he had to give-- and the promise not to increase Legolas’s hurt, if he could manage it.

He could only hope that would be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

He could not help it, and he did not wish to-- in the chaos of the battlefield, surrounded by dying men and fleeing orcs, bloodstained and out of arrows and with a shallow but bleeding slash across his ribs, Legolas looked for Gimli.

All the morning long, all the time on the ships, he had kept his silence and his distance; he had kept his head forward and his back straight, though he could do nothing for the strength of his hearing that picked up every one of the dwarf’s deep breaths or quiet grumbles-- to say nothing of the constant screaming of the gulls overhead. Each noise tore more deeply into the wounds in his heart that he had tried so hard to stitch closed, until he felt as though he would slowly bleed to death before they had even reached the battlefield.

But now that they were here and the battle was ended, he realized that to not hear them was a greater terror. For all that he might try to numb his own pain, for all that Gimli might not wish it so-- the truth of their wedding, at least in Legolas’s heart, could not be denied. And the thought of harm coming to Gimli was a worse wound than any other.

“Gimli?” he called, and hated himself for it.

He gazed around, flexing his burned hand absently, keen eyes raking up and down the battlefield. He had grown accustomed to it, had long since adjusted in his mind to Gimli’s shorter stature. No longer did he merely sweep his gaze over the heads of the men standing, but up and down, to ensure that he had not missed the dwarf in a cursory inspection. He looked at the figures of the fallen as well, though his heart shuddered to do it. If something--

“Legolas?”

The voice came from closer than he had expected, a few feet behind him and softer than usual with confusion. Legolas snapped his head around to look.

The wave of feeling that broke over him was made of so many different emotions that he hardly knew what he felt: relief and joy to see Gimli unharmed, undercut by sharp longing and dull, cold despair, a moment of hope at Gimli’s matching look of relief, a wave of grief that reminded him that it did not mean the same thing--

It was too much to bear; he closed his eyes, and felt himself sway on his feet.

“Legolas?” Gimli’s voice spiked with alarm; Legolas could _feel_ him rushing closer, his very presence a bonfire to Legolas’s foolish moth heart. “Are you well? Were you wounded?” When his fingers closed over Legolas’s arm to steady him, Legolas felt as though he might go up in flames.

He jerked free and forced himself to straighten. “I am well,” he said. “And you?”

“I am unscathed.” Gimli paused, and his eyes flicked away in a manner Legolas recognized as self-conscious and guilty. “Let us learn if our comrades have fared as well. I am sure I heard Éomer amidst the press.”

“Yes,” Legolas agreed, sweeping his gaze about and spying the standard of Rohan far afield. “My heart tells me many good warriors have fallen this day, including some we will not like to learn of.”

“Then let us go and do what good we may helping the wounded,” Gimli suggested. “And then let us go into the city and find-- our lodgings.” He swallowed, awkward. “And food. I regret the breakfast I did not eat this morning, and I will wager you do also.”

Legolas gazed back toward the river Anduin, letting his thoughts drift along with the water. “I regret much,” he said, and turning, he trotted away across the field, seeking survivors, leaving Gimli to follow if he would.

*****

It was many hours later, and they were both worn and weary, when they helped to litter a fallen lord into the Houses of Healing and found Pippin sitting there at Merry’s side, holding his cold hand.

“He fell defending the Lady Éowyn from the Nazgûl,” Pippin said, nearly sobbing, and Legolas turned slightly aside to find Éowyn lying there, her soiled armor in a heap at her side. “His arm is cold. Where is Strider?”

Legolas set his hand upon Pippin’s curly head. “He is upon the field, ministering to the wounded; he will soon come within these walls if he can manage it, as will the new King of Rohan.”

Pippin nodded, his cheeks wet. “He can help Merry,” he said. “I know it.”

“He will do his best.” Legolas paused, struck of a sudden by the tenderness of Pippin’s hand as he brushed aside a clinging tendril of Meriadoc’s sweat-soaked hair. It hit deep in the quick, and a strange pain echoed through the hollowness of his heart-- an unfamiliar thing, an emotion Legolas had never felt before. He examined it slowly in the secrecy of his heart, and thought perhaps it might be envy. Pippin loved Meriadoc dearly, that much was plain. If Legolas lay there, lost to the Black Breath, would any tend him with such selfless love, heeding the plight of no other?

They would not.

He laid his fingertips on the halfling’s arm, but there was no song in him to sing for a wandering spirit to hear, no warmth of his own to lend to draw Merry back into himself. There was only the throbbing of his burned palm.

“I will find Aragorn and tell him he is needed,” Legolas said, and turned on his heel to flee the place, hoping he might outdistance Gimli in his errand.

*****

Gimli made his own excuses to Pippin as quickly as possible once Legolas had departed. He felt vaguely guilty about it, but there was nothing he could do for Merry, and perhaps two pairs of eyes looking for Aragorn would be more effective than one, even if one pair belonged to an elf.

That was what he told himself, anyway, but he knew that he merely hoped to catch Legolas alone.

What good that would do, he knew not, but Gimli’s own conscience would not let him rest until he had at least apologized-- for his callous words of the morning, if for nothing else. If there was any way he might ease the pain he had unknowingly inflicted-- he might not be able to help Merry, but one member of their Fellowship, at least, might not suffer more than he already did.

But Legolas’s legs were too long, and his urgency too great-- and he possessed the ability to slip through crowds without making a stir, which Gimli thought was both unfair and implausible, given his striking elven beauty. He ought to have turned every head, and yet he could move without being noticed, while Gimli found himself shoving past confused and concerned people who often felt the need to shout at him for disturbing them.

And thus it was that after only a few moments, Legolas had succeeded in leaving Gimli far behind, and Gimli cursed in frustration and let his helmeted head thump against a wall.

But after only a moment, a grey-cloaked figure brushed past him from the other direction, with a long stride and a stature that he recognized, even when the face was hidden. Aragorn, moving too quickly for conversation, yes, but-- but if Legolas had found him, that meant Gimli knew which direction to go.

Heads were turning towards Aragorn, whispers were spreading, and Gimli used their distraction to rush down the hall past the crowds of people and out to the doors of the Houses of Healing. And there, to his-- relief? apprehension?-- stood Legolas.

Gimli tried to move silently, but the elf’s ears were too keen for him. He could tell by the stiffness of Legolas’s back that his friend-- his… husband…?-- knew he was present.

“Gimli,” Legolas said, in a cool voice that made Gimli think of their first meeting in Rivendell. Courtesy satisfied, Legolas offered no more.

“Legolas.” For all he had wanted this conversation, Gimli found that he had no idea how to go about beginning it. He shifted from foot to foot, wishing that Legolas would turn around to look at him-- and then glad that he did not, for fear of what he might see in the elf’s eyes. “I… wished to apologize to you.”

“You have already offered your apology,” Legolas said, voice brittle. He tilted his head back to survey the sky. “The stars are faint, if I see them at all. A great fume rises from Orodruin. Sauron is not pleased with this day’s work.” He stepped from the light into shadow and moved to the edge of the street-- the edge of a tier, where he gazed down over a parapet into the next ring of the city. “That is worth much.” He did not sound particularly pleased-- or displeased; he merely made his observation.

“Yes,” said Gimli, helpless. He knew not what to do with this coldness from his friend who had always been so warm and open with him, honest about sorrow as well as joy. Any other night, he would have had a song for the stars, and he would have shared it with Gimli. Not tonight. “The loss of the Witch-king is a great blow to him, and a reason for us to take heart. I only hope that we do not lose any others of our own tonight.” Was Legolas trying to remind him, with his words of Sauron, how petty he was, to be so focused on such a small matter? Or was that Gimli’s own conscience?

“Aragorn will prevent it if he may.” Legolas turned away. “We have been given a lodging in the Citadel. I am sure you are weary and in want of sleep.” The memory of their previous night hung heavy over his words-- it had not been a night of rest, and they had done hard battle today. “Any of the pages would take you there.”

“And you?” Gimli asked. He did not like to do it, but he had to know. “If you would rather, I can ask for lodging elsewhere. I would not bring you discomfort--” _Any more than I already have._

“It matters not.” Legolas shrugged-- and made even such an insignificant motion a ballet of studied grace. “I need far less sleep than mortal kind. I would go abroad in the city and learn its ways, and I will visit the green things that grow in its courtyards.” He fell silent of a sudden, as if realizing this was the longest speech he had made since the morning.

“That you may do anytime tomorrow,” said Gimli, forcing himself to take the same kind of tone he might have used before this morning, “for I am sure that the trees’ lives are not so short that they cannot wait a single night.” He bit his lip-- somehow that had felt off, unlike their usual teasing, and he thought he had seen a slight flinch in Legolas’s shoulders, though it was hardly noticeable. “I would not have you forgo your rest, my friend-- for friend you still are to me, whether you would have it so or not.” He squared his shoulders, determined to face up to this thing between them as best he could, if he could not undo it. “I do not begrudge you your anger at me, Legolas-- indeed, I welcome it-- but I would have you know that you are yet my dearest friend, even if I cannot--” He swallowed, and did not finish his sentence, fearing to inflict more pain in an attempt to heal that which he had already caused.

“Cannot love me.” Legolas turned to face him then, and the emptiness of his face was terrible to behold. “You are right. I would not abandon our friendship because I cannot have more. I will lead you to our lodging.”

Legolas kept his steps short, ensuring Gimli did not fall behind, and led him up through the winding ways of the city as if he were at home in its smoke-stained white pathways. But in truth, Gimli realized, the elf was reading the street signs and the numbers upon the houses, which were written in runes unfamiliar to Gimli.

They stood after a time before a small apartment, and the door yielded to Legolas’s hand. Fires were laid in the fireplaces, and food (albeit the poor rations of wartime) placed within the cabinets. There was also wine, and strong spirits, but Gimli thought it might be many days before he willingly took beer upon his tongue once more-- and if he had his way, he would not be in company with the elf when he did.

There were two bedrooms in the apartment, which relieved Gimli greatly. They would not be forced to share-- a greater embarrassment he could not imagine, given the divide between them.

Even still, they stood across from one another in the small main room between them, strangely far apart, shoulders and feet apart in the way of acquaintances who had met by chance in a city street. Legolas looked off into the distance, and Gimli stared at the ground between Legolas’s feet.

“You will take rest?” Gimli said at last, not looking up.

“I will. And in the morning, perhaps we will be able to see how our friends fare.”

“Yes.” At last Gimli brought his gaze up, and saw when he did that Legolas had turned at last to look at him when he did. For a moment their gazes locked, and Gimli felt that he would crumple in shame at the weight of pain he saw in his friend’s eyes. But all he could say was, “Well. Good night.”

“Good night.” Legolas forced a smile that made him look like a grimacing skeleton: horrible and hollow and worse by far than all the empty stares of before. Gimli could only look at it for a moment before breaking, turning away, and fleeing into his own bedroom.

Gimli had grown accustomed to sleeping near his friend, after so many nights spent together as a fellowship of nine and then of three, and he was used to the incessant song that elves seemed to need to greet the stars every night before they could rest. But tonight, as it had been the rest of the day, as hard as he listened, he could not hear Legolas singing.

*****

Legolas sat in his stone chamber and brushed his hand back and forth over the damasked silk of the bedcover, unable to close out the sounds of Gimli preparing for bed, lying down, tossing and turning, and finally snoring. It had been a long and weary day; to Legolas it felt as though a _yen_ had passed between morning and night.

His hand hurt, though, reminding him that it, like his heart, had not yet had time to heal.

He closed it to a fist, trying to distract himself with pain, but the images came anyway-- images of what he had expected to do tonight when he arose this morning. If Gimli had truly meant for them to wed, he would once again have enjoyed baring his husband for love, opening him like the petals of a flower. He would have run his palms over the coarse red mat of fur on Gimli’s chest. He would have felt Gimli’s mouth upon his skin, the dwarf’s hard length between his thighs-- ah, but he was a fool. He had abandoned his innocence with joy, and now he was left to burn with none at hand who would quench the fire!

Legolas flung himself off the bed and paced, as if that might take him far from the thoughts he carried in his head. It did not, but he must move-- must fool himself and exhaust his body with the illusion of action, of motion. Would that he were not trapped here, like a rabbit in a hutch!

He stepped onto the balcony, but the fume had thickened, and no stars might be seen, save for far away on the eastern horizon-- over the sea.

Legolas keened softly deep in his throat; he would be under them. Then among them. Then beyond them, freed of Middle Earth for once and all, home at last among his kin. Perhaps his mother awaited him there; she would welcome him with open arms and tend his hurts. The cut on his ribs throbbed, untreated. She might sit at his bedside and sing for him, and he could follow her voice far from weariness and pain.

Smoke brushed across his face from fires yet smoldering in the lower rings of the city, where the devastation of battle was worst. It caught at his lungs unpleasantly, harsh, bearing none of the sweetness of pipe-weed in its burning. Yet it was free, and could rise; it could escape… perhaps it bore the memory of loss upon its wings even then. He did not know.

Legolas sat and sang sadly of smoke and burning, his soft voice lost on the whisper of the air.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: snippets of dialogue from this chapter lifted directly from ROTK.

Legolas woke the next morning with none of the ease and grace of the day before; his mind snapping from reverie to wakefulness in a way similar to that of a mortal waking from troubling dreams. Indeed, he felt almost mortal-- the sea had stolen his sleep last night, sweeping him away from Minas Tirith on gull-wings and flying him far away, over the endless tides. He had looked ahead, at where Aman awaited him, though even his eyes could not yet see it; he had felt himself drawing nearer and nearer, his heart lightening with each wing-stroke-- and just as it came into sight, the dream had abandoned him, dropping him back into his weary, aching body on a balcony in the smoke-filled air of a battle-torn city.

He dropped his face into his hands for a moment, feeling less like an elf than he ever had-- and yet more, for if he were not an elf, the grief would not sit so heavily upon him, would not feel as though it pressed him to the ground. If he were not an elf, he would not yearn for the sea. If he were not an elf--

He clamped his teeth together so tightly that his jaw began to ache, but it was better than whatever anguished noise might otherwise have come out.

Taking a deep breath and tensing his shoulders, he went back into his bedroom from the small balcony. There he made quick use of the chamber pot and then the washstand, hoping that feeling clean might steady his troubled thoughts, and dressed in fresh clothing-- he would look for a place where he might launder his garments from the day before, but today, at least, he would go about the city looking respectable.

It was when he buttoned up his tunic that he realized with a flame of scorching humiliation that he would be unable to forget his folly and his grief. The love bites Gimli had given him the night before remained on his neck and collarbone, faded but still excruciatingly visible. Anyone he encountered might see him and know, at least, that he had been abed with another-- they might stare, or tease, and each smile would scrape another piece out of his raw heart.

But he could do nothing for it, and it was with a sinking stomach that he next turned his attention to his hair.

He had intended to braid it as he had always done in the past, leaving behind the marriage pattern he had woven into it the day before. What was the sense, after all, in flaunting a marriage unwanted, a love unreturned? But now, with the prints still on his flesh, which he felt still tingled with the remembered touch of Gimli’s mouth, he found he could not.

Yes, his affection was undesired; his marriage was one-sided. But he would not dishonor himself or his love by pretending that it meant nothing. It might not be returned, but it meant everything to him, and although there were no other elves here, he would be unable to deny the truth of his heart to them no matter what he wore in his hair.

Even if he were to fall in battle, whenever it next occurred, he would at least die as he was: Legolas, son of Thranduil, husband to Gimli, son of Glóin-- even if he wished it not.

He braided his hair quickly, without lingering, trying not to imagine that his own hands were Gimli’s instead. Nevertheless his breath quickened, and his face flushed. As he finished, he became aware of the first stirring next door-- Gimli had awakened; in a few moments there was a rustle as he went through the curtain onto their shared balcony, and then the sweet tang of pipe smoke.

Legolas closed his eyes. He remembered the taste of that sweetness upon Gimli’s lips, and the scent of it enveloping him like a blanket as Gimli’s hair and beard fell about him, loosed from their confinement. Tears sprang to his eyes and he shuddered. This must not go on-- this terrible display of weakness as each memory and regret blindsided him anew every waking moment. He must maintain some thread of dignity, some fragment of pride. He must pretend all was well-- though he had been gutted, he must gather up his viscera and conceal them within the hollow cavity grief had left when it stole his soul.

His thought flew at once to his father’s desolate pride, and he knew of a sudden why Thranduil was as he was, and he was sorry for much that he had said and done through long years of failure to understand.

Legolas dashed the tears from his eyes and stood, digging his nails into his sore palm-- it should have been nearly well, but the strain of battle and his constant use of the hand had delayed the healing.

When Gimli’s head poked cautiously through his curtain he was prepared for it, and met the dwarf’s scrutiny with a bland smile. With faint, bitter pride, he noticed that he did not even flinch when his eyes fell upon the matching marks Gimli bore on the side of his neck-- less visible than Legolas’s own, but not completely covered by his tunic or his braided beard.

“Good morning, my friend.” It sounded almost right. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.” Gimli’s voice was careful, but he took his cue from Legolas and spoke nothing more than pleasantries. “And you? Did you rest, as you promised?”

“I did.” It was not entirely a lie.

There was a moment of silence, before Gimli cleared his throat awkwardly. “I had thought to go visit our friends in the Houses of Healing,” he said. “Unless Aragorn has other plans for us. Did he speak to you last night?”

“He was too pressed for time last night to speak of anything other than his urgency,” Legolas said. Guilt stole into his heart at the memory-- he had left the Houses of Healing last night before even assuring himself of Merry’s recovery. He swore to himself that this was the last time his own sorrow would stand in the way of his duties to his friends-- and he would give none of them cause to mark his troubles, when there was so much to be done. “But as he said nothing, I would assume we are at leisure for the day-- and I too would like to ensure that Merry is well.”

They set out together as always, their strides matching with little effort from either of them, after the long days walking side by side. Legolas hummed as they walked, a song of the sea that he had not known he remembered, grateful at least that it gave him something to do. And when he sang, it lessened the weight of Gimli’s concerned eyes, which before had turned so incessantly towards him.

“There is some good stone-work here,” said Gimli after a time, gazing around at the city walls, “but also some that is less good, and the streets could be better contrived. When Aragorn comes into his own, I shall offer him the service of stonewrights of the Mountain, and we will make this a town to be proud of.”

He waited for a moment, as though for Legolas’s reply. It was the sort of comment he had made many times before, and Legolas knew that he was trying with all his might to restore the old ease between them.

That ease had gone forever, but he would not say so. Instead, he responded in kind, as he might have at any other moment. “They need more gardens,” he said instead. “The houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad. If Aragorn comes into his own, the people of the Wood shall bring him birds that sing and trees that do not die.” But he could not promise his own aid, not as Gimli had; for himself, he would be away over sea as soon as his duty in this war was done.

They went on to the Houses of Healing, stopping briefly to speak with Prince Imrahil. With a sudden flash of insight when they spoke to him, Legolas realized that Imrahil, like many of the Numenoreans, was descended from elves-- and it made him wonder how many of the elvish customs were still kept alive in the city. Could this man see his braided hair and know of his heart? Would he notice the matching bruises Legolas and Gimli bore, and draw the correct-- and yet the wrong-- conclusion? Would others in the city-- but no. He clamped that thought down as it began, reminding himself of his vow, and he and Gimli passed the time with light words until they were in the company of their friends once more.

The halflings were still together, and to Legolas’s relief, Merry was awake, and his eyes alert. His arm yet lay bound, and he held it awkwardly in his lap, but Legolas judged he would soon mend.

“What is this!” Pippin crowed almost the moment he lifted his eyes to gaze upon them, his eyes flicking from Legolas’s throat to Gimli’s exposed sliver of neck. “Either the two of you have battled a nest of bees, or you have been pelted by hail-- or those are the marks of kisses that I see!”

“It is about time,” Merry smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Congratulations to you both!”

Gimli cleared his throat and shuffled his feet with great dismay. “Here, now, that is unkind of you to say, knowing nothing of our circumstances.”

Pippin’s exultant cackling faded, and Merry’s broad smile with it. “We meant only to share in your joy,” Pippin said, but Merry’s eyes narrowed and he quelled his friend, placing a hand over his.

“Hush, Pip.” He patted Pippin’s hand. “I believe you are mistaken.”

“Ah, yes, well,” Pippin struggled to rally. “I am told there are houses in the city where-- but I had not thought--” He colored. “Forgive my presumption.” He rose to his feet in haste and bowed very low.

“We have come to inquire about your arm,” Legolas said, determined to smooth over the awkward moment as fast as he might. “Are you allowed to walk yet?”

“I may,” Merry said. “Let us go out and see how the city has fared.” He put his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, swaying a bit. Pippin steadied him, and first taking a moment to pass by the bedside of the Lady Éowyn to greet her they went out and found a high place where they might sit and look down upon the tiers of Minas Tirith to the battle-scarred plain far below. In the distance, men had built a pyre to dispose of the nazgûl’s mount, and a high pillar of black smoke rose to mar the sky.

Legolas wondered at the restorative power of halflings’ energy, that within moments even he felt as though his grief had been lifted, if only for a short time. They wandered for a time in the gardens, and Merry and Pippin told the tales of their adventures, and Legolas marveled at their fortitude and courage, and was proud to call them friends. But at length Merry grew weary, and they went to sit upon the garden wall… and far away, Legolas could see the sun shining off the water of the Anduin, and his light mood fled on the wings of the gulls that cried overhead.

“Look!” he said at last, unable to hold it inside. “Gulls!” And as his companions turned their gazes upward, he told them of the longing that had struck him at Pelargir, of the sea-- the sea! Perhaps, too, he wished to warn them-- warn Merry and Pippin, at least, that even if the impossible happened and they all survived the struggle to come, he would not remain to enjoy their victory. “Alas! for the gulls,” he said at last, his voice growing soft. _For they have brought upon me all the grief I now must bear._ “No peace shall I have again under beech or under elm.”

“Say not so!” said Gimli. “There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do. But if all the fair folk take to the Havens, it will be a duller world for those who are doomed to stay.”

Legolas managed, he thought masterfully, not to flinch.

“Dull and dreary indeed!” said Merry, and his kindness sent a flare of warmth into Legolas’s icy heart, if only for seconds. “You must not go to the Havens, Legolas. There will always be some folk, big or little, and even a few wise dwarves like Gimli, who need you.” But he did not know of what he spoke. Gimli might wish him to stay, might enjoy his company, might not wish to drive Legolas away-- but he did not _need_ him, and Legolas knew that now more surely than he ever had.

To his fortune, his response was not needed, for Merry continued without a break. “At least I hope so. Though I feel somehow that the worst of this war is still to come. How I wish it was all over, and well over!”

“Don’t be so gloomy!” cried Pippin. “The Sun is shining, and here we are together for a day or two at least. I want to hear more about you all.”

And so they whiled away the morning with only a little awkwardness between them. Legolas had the fortunate wit to blame his poor cheer upon the sea longing, speaking of it again once their tale brought them to Pelargir and saying, “Then I thought in my heart that we drew near to the Sea; for wide was the water in the darkness, and sea-birds innumerable cried on its shores. Alas for the wailing of the gulls! Did not the Lady tell me to beware of them? And now I cannot forget them.”

“For my part I heeded them not,” said Gimli, and Legolas lost the thread of the talk for a time. The gulls were not all Gimli had failed to heed, and he brooded upon the dwarf’s choices and his own ruin.

He returned to himself again in time to hear Gimli and the others musing upon the future, and tasked himself to listen.

“The faces of Aragorn and Gandalf are grave,” said Gimli. “Much I wonder what counsels they are taking in the tents there below. For my part, like Merry, I wish that with our victory the war was now over. Yet whatever is still to do, I hope to have a part in it, for the honour of the folk of the Lonely Mountain.’

“And I for the folk of the Great Wood,” said Legolas sadly, “and for the love of the Lord of the White Tree.” He looked away, feeling Gimli’s eyes move to rest upon him, and Merry’s as well. They all fell silent, sitting somber without sharing their thoughts for a time before one of the healers came out and summoned the halflings back inside again. Merry paused on the threshold to give the two of them a last, worried glance before he vanished.

“We may hope that was the worst of it.” Gimli tugged at his tunic, managing to cover a dark bruise with his collar. “I am sorry, elf.”

“It is no matter,” Legolas said, and gestured as if to flick away Gimli’s words. He knew that was not the worst of it-- likely it was only the start. But he would not reveal his suffering—not now, and not when it worsened, even if he had to cut off his own tongue to keep it inside.

Gimli fidgeted, plainly seeing that he had not undone the damage, but there was nothing he could do that might mend what had broken.

“We will see battle again soon,” Legolas predicted. “I would look to my weapons and my armor and be ready.” Thus excusing himself, he made his way down into the city to seek those who might whet his knives and mend the slash in his leather.

*****

Gimli watched Legolas depart; he longed to call him back and try once more to apologize, to explain, but he knew it would do more harm than good. He supposed it would take time for the elf to recover from such a dreadful mistake-- nay, betrayal. He might have torn his beard for sheer regret! His well-intentioned attempt to cheer Legolas had gone so far astray he all but despaired for their friendship. All his best attempts to restore it, to show Legolas that he was valued and needed, seemed only to deepen the hurt.

Turning his face away from the city, Gimli went back to their lodging. He had the craft to mend his own weapons, save for the notch in his axe, and he spent a time doing so, his heart heavy.

The work of his hands had often been enough in the past to distract him from troubling thoughts, to keep him grounded in the task at hand and prevent him from slipping into despair, but it was not so today. The repairs he needed to make were too simple to keep his thoughts busy, and were finished too swiftly, leaving him with nothing to do but brood.

Such complications had never before arisen from a dalliance with another, and there had been many; it was the dwarvish way to share pleasure with one’s shieldbrothers and close friends, and then to forget swiftly and make new liaisons of the same sort any time a new opportunity arose. How was Gimli to know that it would be different this time? But even that weak defense fell away quickly in the face of his own shame and distress.

Why must it be thus? It had begun so well-- the elf had been a willing and passionate lover, somewhat clumsy but eager, his body lithe and sweet under Gimli’s hands and mouth. Thinking of it even now, Gimli’s body stirred against his will. He would not have minded keeping the elf as a shieldbrother always, sharing such with him when they were alone or sorrowful, yet returning home always to kith and kin… and thinking always with exaltation and longing of Galadriel, whom he might admire always from afar, but never touch.

Gimli set his axe aside and leaned his helm back against the stone wall with a thump. His cock was not at all weary, and it liked the thought of Legolas’s smooth skin. Gimli glowered down at it resentfully. It would not be right to deny the elf and wound him so, yet to think of his bare skin in secret, to dwell on and embellish what they had done so recently the marks yet lingered. But a stiff prick had no conscience, and it had been a long dry spell indeed before he dallied with the elf-- and he might die in battle only a few days hence.

Gimli sighed and freed himself. Likely the elf would be gone for many long hours. If he returned at all ere nightfall, he would betake himself to his own apartments and would not seek for Gimli. Why should he?

But oh, if Legolas were of the same mind as Gimli, what fine sport they might have enjoyed together this day! His hand moved, coaxing pleasure from rigid flesh, and Gimli let his eyes sink shut, remembering the clean-limbed muscle of Legolas, the way the elf had lifted himself into every touch, and sighed, and moaned. The tightness of his body about Gimli, the quiver of his sleek belly, the taste of his mouth--!

Gimli spent far too soon, cupping the mess in the palm of his hand, then sought a cloth to wipe it away. He shook his head as shame flooded in, no longer held at bay by the body’s need. Folly-- utmost folly. He should have thought of anyone else; a different former partner, perhaps, if he dared not use the Lady to stir his desire.

This was not the first time he had thought of Legolas, but always before it had been without guilt, for he could only imagine the touch and had not felt it for himself. Thus it had always been with Gimli’s imaginings-- any attractions to fellow warriors had passed quickly, more real in his mind than to his body. It was his fantasy that had always stirred up his arousal, more than any memory; once he knew the touch of the one he desired, he had always found that any lust passed quickly with it. So he had thought it would be with Legolas-- so it should have been, for at least whenever he left other partners, he had never taken a heart with him.

It was a cruel trick of fate, to make him linger so over one he had wounded so deeply.

He straightened himself up, fastening his breeches once more and leaving the soiled cloth for the servants to launder. Even as he did so, he could not stop himself from glancing around, heat rushing into his cheeks, to ensure that Legolas was not returning. Even when he had erased the evidence of his transgression, he still felt as though it could be seen in his eyes or the guilty flush in his face.

 _Not again,_ he promised himself. It would not happen again.


	7. Chapter 7

For all Legolas’s efforts to keep busy, moving from leatherworker to metalsmith to market and on as quickly as he could, Aragorn found him far too easily. Indeed, Legolas suspected that the only reason it had taken so long was that Aragorn himself had been delayed by his meeting with the other lords of men-- that if he had wished to seek Legolas out earlier, he would have been entirely untroubled by Legolas’s own attempts at stealth.

“I thought I would find you here,” said Aragorn when he approached, and indeed Legolas had not chosen a particularly hidden place. He perched on the edge of the wall of the second circle of the city, staring out at the river and imagining that if he only strained his eyes hard enough, he could catch sight of the sea.

“And now you have found me,” said Legolas. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them. It was comforting to sit thus, curled tightly around himself; he felt as though if he did not move, he might hold himself so closely that he would forget the arms that held him were his own. He did not turn around as Aragorn came to lean against the wall beside him.

“I have finished meeting with Éomer and Imrahil and Gandalf,” Aragorn said, after a moment of quiet. “We have made plans for the days to come, and I would speak to you of them.”

“Speak, then,” said Legolas. “But it matters not what you say. You know already that I am beside you, even if you decided to storm the Black Gate itself.”

“Ah.” Aragorn seemed a bit taken aback. “Well, that is… particularly good to hear. Although I did not doubt your loyalty, it is heartening to know that you are with me, however dangerous the road.”

“Of course.” _The more dangerous, the better._

He had not spoken that last thought aloud, but Aragorn seemed to have heard it anyway. “But before I speak to you of our plans,” he said, and Legolas tensed for the question that he knew was coming, “I must ask how you fare. Are you--”

“I am fine,” interrupted Legolas. “The minor wounds I sustained in yesterday’s battle will heal quickly, and I will not let anything hinder my ability to fight. You need not worry that I will slow you down.”

“That is not what I asked,” said Aragorn. “As you know. How many times will we need to have this conversation before you open up to me?”

“No more, I hope,” said Legolas. “I may not know what you discussed with the other lords, but I can feel as well as you that this road is winding to its end. I would not have you concern yourself with something so petty as one elf’s well-being when the fate of Middle-earth hangs in the balance. I am well enough to fight; that is all that need concern you, and though I am but one warrior among many, I am determined that I will be an advantage to your company. Even if it costs my life to do so.” That life, after all, was worth little and less every moment in Gimli’s company, with every word that reminded him that he was not enough.

“That is what concerns me,” said Aragorn. “That you will throw away your life on a whim, driven on by despair, when you might otherwise survive the battle to come and live to see Sauron defeated.”

“What does it matter,” argued Legolas, “when I will end up in the same place either way?”

Aragorn flinched, and then sighed. “You will sail, then?” he said. “You are decided?”

“I stay on this road for love of you,” said Legolas, “and duty to Middle-earth. Where you command, I will go, until our task here is complete. But if by some miracle we survive and succeed, my feet will stay on these shores not a moment longer than they must.”

Aragorn turned away from him, his shoulders sagging slightly. “It troubles me that you should say what you do, and that I must take advantage of it with you in this fey mood.” He sighed. “Gandalf advises me that Frodo and Samwise have entered the Black Land. It is mad folly to march upon the Black Gate, but we mean to do so-- to draw attention away from them as they seek the mountain. Our feint should convince Sauron of my foolish confidence-- he will believe it conferred by possession of the Ring, for without it no king would venture such a mad enterprise.”

Legolas swallowed thickly and nodded. “I trust in the wisdom of Mithrandir. If this is his counsel, we must abide by it.” He lifted his chin. “I will tell Gimli.”

“We march in two days,” Aragorn said. “I hope the two of you may use this time to mend your friendship.”

Legolas gave him a smile he knew was too bright to be other than false. “Our friendship is as it was,” he said-- and in a way he meant it; ever he had cared more for Gimli than Gimli had for him, it seemed.

Aragorn merely shook his head. “I am sorry, my friend.” He came to Legolas and set a firm hand upon his shoulder.

Legolas set his jaw and nodded once, curt. He was glad when Aragorn stepped around him and continued on, striding away toward the Houses of Healing.

*****

It was some time before Legolas could coax himself to return to his lodgings, pushing mercilessly down on the turmoil in his chest and fixing his lips in a rigid line, bracing himself to look upon Gimli’s face once more.

Gimli was in the apartment they shared when Legolas returned, though he would not meet Legolas’s eyes when he entered. Legolas supposed that was just as well.

He explained Aragorn’s plan in as few words as possible, and Gimli was nodding even before he had finished. “It is foolhardy,” he said, “but perhaps had we not been fools since the beginning, we would not have come even as far as we are now.” He looked up at last, now looking without the discomfort of earlier into Legolas’s face. “You told Aragorn, I hope, that we are both by his side?”

“Not in as many words,” said Legolas softly, “but I did not doubt you, and I am sure he does not either.” He still remembered Gimli’s words from the very beginning of their journey: _Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens._ The knowledge of Gimli’s constancy had given him strength at times when all had seemed hopeless, the dwarf’s loyalty and courage shining like flame in the darkness. Even now he faced up to the strife between them with honesty, and as much generosity as he could give, even though his heart failed to match Legolas’s own. And for all that Legolas could yearn to despise him, to turn warmth into coldness and longing into anger, he could not help but love Gimli for it, even now--

This was no time for such thoughts, lest his heart overcome him and tear down all the shields he had spent the better part of the day constructing! He clamped ruthlessly down on the swell of despairing affection within him, wrapping it in steel bands until it could no longer surge free.

“That is well,” said Gimli. “For you and I, we have always known our road lies with this Quest, even to the bitter end. And although we are no longer beside Frodo and Sam as we imagined, still I feel that we are with them, and we will lay our lives down for their mission even as we carry with us our hope for their success.”

“Until the bitter end,” Legolas agreed soberly. It did not sound such a terrible thing as it would have, once. It seemed likely to him that they would die in battle at the foot of the Morannon; for all of Gandalf’s plotting, he could not be sure when or if Frodo and Samwise would reach the mountain. And yet... to die in the cause of defeating Sauron seemed good to Legolas now. He only wished that Gimli could be made to remain in the city, so that he might be spared….

“Legolas, though I have failed you, let us ride together one last time,” Gimli said, low, as if hearing his unspoken thought. “I would not be apart from my dearest friend as we go to our fate.”

“We will ride together upon Arod,” Legolas answered, unable to deny Gimli’s earnest entreaty. “Our friend shall bear us, as he has so faithfully, and I will try-- I will not fail _you_ by allowing,” he swallowed, “unwanted feeling to steal the ease from us at the last. This I vow to you.”

And he vowed it to himself, as well. Gimli had not known what he did, had not asked for Legolas’s affection to be thrust upon him, and yet he was forced to bear the burden of it as though he had done it on purpose. How could Legolas justify imposing that on the one he loved?

“We will go to the end as friends, as we were,” he said aloud, sealing the promise in his words and in his hollow heart. “And I will be glad to stand by your side.”


	8. Chapter 8

Gimli awaited impatiently next to Arod, who stood peacefully champing the oats in his nose-bag. The horse seemed unconcerned whether the elf would arrive.

Gimli looked up warily at Shadowfax, who pawed cordially at his stall and nosed at Gimli’s arm.

“Very well,” Gimli surrendered, and brought out one of the apples he had brought to bribe Arod if the beast proved more than usually fractious. Shadowfax took it from his outstretched hand with delicate grace-- at least the horses did not seem to bear a grudge against Gimli, though for the last few days he had felt everyone else might. Legolas himself seemed the only one of their friends who bore Gimli no anger, which did little to appease his guilt but at least allowed him to hope the elf might begin to recover from his-- he winced at the word-- heartbreak. But Gimli felt he could sense the waves of disapproval coming from everyone else, beginning with Aragorn and ending with Gandalf, who invariably broke into scowls when he saw Legolas moping about the city with his head sunk between his shoulders and Gimli staring after him like a kicked pup.

He had hoped Legolas would arrive before the wizard, but it was not to be. Gandalf came sweeping in and his bushy brows drew together with disapproval, as if he would not countenance such a knave feeding his beloved horse.

“Well met,” Gimli ventured, forcing himself not to quail under the wizard’s gaze.

“Hmm,” said Gandalf. “If you say so, Gimli, son of Glóin.” He surveyed Gimli for another moment, his stare so piercing that Gimli shifted, the back of his neck going uncomfortably warm.

“Gandalf--” Gimli began, though he was not quite sure what he would say. To ask for advice he did not dare, not under Gandalf’s warning glare; to defend himself he hardly had the right; but it was not Gandalf to whom he owed apology, and he and Legolas had already said all they could of their own affairs.

Gandalf raised one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“It is nothing,” mumbled Gimli, averting his gaze and wishing selfishly for Legolas to show up. Gandalf might not stare at him so accusingly if the elf were present as well--

No; that hope was more foolish even than their march to Mordor. Gandalf would do exactly as he wished, when he wished it, no matter who was present.

Gandalf eyed him another moment longer, and looked about to speak-- but Gimli was saved, suddenly and undeservedly, by the arrival of Legolas just as the wizard opened his mouth. “Gimli,” he said, and Gimli could not read his tone. “You are here already-- and Mithrandir. Well met.”

“Well met indeed,” said Gandalf, with more warmth than he had afforded to Gimli, although his eyes remained keen as ever. He said nothing more to either of them, and it was clear that Legolas desired no conversation-- perhaps it was that that turned Gandalf away from them at last, with one more quiet “hmph” in Gimli’s direction.

Little more was spoken as the armies of men assembled-- their numbers appeared large, seeing them spread out so just outside the ruined city gates, but although he did not have the keen eyes of Legolas, Gimli could see how small they were against the sprawling expanse of the Pelennor, and he knew they would be even smaller against the amassed forces of Sauron at his very fortress.

Beside him, he heard a sharp intake of breath. Legolas. “Gandalf,” he said, “do I see clearly? Does our friend Pippin march with the men of Minas Tirith?”

“You do,” answered Gandalf, unwavering as Legolas and then Gimli turned censuring gazes upon him. He scowled back. “What? Do you question the addition of another sword-arm in battle against the Great Enemy, even at the last?”

“I do, if it is that one,” Gimli said. He might not dare to defend himself against Gandalf’s ire when it came to matters between him and the elf, but this was something else entirely. “He ought not be marching with us, not here, not now. He was never meant for this, and he has more than earned his rest--”

“There are many marching with us now who ought not be here!” said Gandalf sharply. “Indeed, none of us ought be here. But we began this road together as a Fellowship, and even now, all who are still able have come together to see it to its end.” His eyes drifted from Gimli to Legolas, and Gimli felt almost as though Gandalf were reminding him of vows he could not have heard spoken-- promises to stay friends to the end of their road, even with all else that lay between them.

“It is true,” said Legolas softly, as though reminded as well. “But we will do all we may to protect him, will we not, my friend? We will not leave another member of our Fellowship behind.” He reached out, as though overwhelmed with feeling, and laid one of his hands over Gimli’s own.

Gimli sucked in air, surprised at the tingling jolt of the contact, the memories that it unwillingly brought to life-- and Legolas blanched, jerking his hand back from Gimli’s as though he had been bitten. “Forgive me,” he said stiffly, clutching the errant hand tightly in his other and turning away. Gimli swore internally, but he could think of nothing to say.

Beside him, Gandalf’s frown darkened.

It seemed Legolas had no more stomach for the wizard’s ire than Gimli; he nudged Arod with his heels and set a hand on the beast’s neck, and before Gimli knew it they had drawn away from the wizard and Aragorn, meandering slowly near to Pippin, who rode a pony that was hard pressed to keep up with the longer-legged horses, for all that its burden was light.

They fell in next to the halfling at length. “Well met,” cried Pippin, who brightened at the sight of them. “It is good to see you both. I confess, I felt quite alone and unwanted until the two of you arrived.”

“Not used to being abroad without someone to stop you from getting into trouble, I will wager,” Gimli said, relaxing at the prospect of some neutral friend to speak with.

His relief proved premature. Now that they had settled on their position, Arod’s sway turned rhythmic, rocking Gimli up against Legolas in a way that very soon had him struggling to keep his mind on the halfling’s conversation. Curse it, just because he hadn’t wanted to marry the elf didn’t mean he was indifferent to him! Legolas was strong and well-made, and he smelled of well-oiled leather and… something fresh and vibrant, something that lifted the soul and eased it, like a tide of clean air sweeping over a barren sunbaked plain.

Gimli swallowed harshly, reprimanding himself in no uncertain terms; he had no right to respond thus to the elf after rejecting his heart. But the warmth of him, the solid span of his waist between Gimli’s palms, and that infernal slow rocking that kept dragging Gimli forward-- for as they rode, they descended a long, slow slope, and Gimli could not resist the constant tug forward, which kept him pressed tight against Legolas.

His body remembered this position well, though with many fewer layers between them-- and it remembered the motion also. It woke, stubborn, and refused to be dissuaded, bite his lip and dig his nails into his palms though Gimli might.

Then disaster-- as their path steepened, and try as he might, he was pressed hard against Legolas’s backside, wishing that for once the damned elf would condescend to use a saddle.

In only a matter of moments, Legolas went as rigid as Gimli’s prick, his hands white-knuckled as they twisted into Arod’s mane. Gimli cursed himself, tensing his thighs until he was half-elevated from Arod’s back, trying to brace himself with his hands against Legolas’s waist and push back as far as he could-- but the damage was done.

“Legolas?” said Pippin beside them, his voice laced with innocent concern. “Are you all right?”

“I am fine,” said Legolas, his voice tight, effort plain to be heard in every clipped syllable. “I was merely distracted. What did you say?”

“Are you sure?” pressed Pippin unwisely. “You look as though you’re in pain.”

Behind the elf, Gimli tried not to grimace and focused all his energy on willing his body to behave. _Down, down, down,_ he repeated in his head, trying to redirect the flow of his blood through sheer force of will, trying to think about something, _anything_ other than the solid, muscular form of Legolas pressed against him, the memory of how smooth his skin was, how warm and eager-- _no!_ Something else, something else-- Gimli racked his brains for the most repulsive sights he had ever seen in decades of battles--

“My apologies,” said Legolas stiffly. “Perhaps it is the reminder of the dangers of our road. I have never faced battle on such a scale before, and it is a sobering reminder of our mortality.”

At the moment, Gimli would have welcomed death in battle; indeed, he was nearly tempted to fling himself off of Arod and allow the neighboring horses to trample him, thus putting both him and Legolas out of their misery. But Pippin, at least, seemed diverted.

“You are afraid, then?” His voice dropped suddenly. “Sometimes, when I look around at all the armies and hear all the grand speeches, it seems impossible to imagine the Big Folk could ever be frightened of a battle,” he confessed, shamefaced. “I used to admire all the great heroes in the stories old Bilbo would tell… but now, I can’t help but wish I were back at home in the Shire, without knowing about war or Sau-- the Enemy, or rings.”

Listening to him provided the diversion Gimli had hoped for, his sympathy for the young hobbit overwhelming his own thoughts of guilt and arousal, at least for a moment-- at least until the ground turned uneven beneath them. Arod’s gait jerked, sending Gimli rocking forward into full contact with Legolas once more, and he could not help but hiss aloud.

“Were you injured in battle, Gimli?” Pippin frowned, anxiety wrinkling his young brow. “You should have told the healers.”

“I was not,” Gimli said shortly. _Would that I had been!_ Then perhaps he would not be in this predicament. “It is this foul beast,” he blamed Arod unfairly. “Sitting on this hard back would bruise even a troll’s stones!”

“I will walk,” Legolas announced at once and vaulted down swiftly before Gimli could demur. “Now you may have the whole horse to yourself, and to your stones.”

Pippin frowned at them, clearly aware he had missed some crucial bit of information, but lacking the insight to arrive at the correct conclusion. “But if Gimli is saddle-sore, would it not make more sense if--” he glanced between them, and for a wonder, he silenced himself and changed the subject.

“I wonder how long until we reach the Morannon,” he said, obvious in his attempt to sound casual.

A miracle indeed that halfling was learning wisdom and discretion at last-- perhaps his terrible experiences with the Lord Denethor had seasoned him.

“I do not know. I will go scout and find out,” Legolas said, and darted away. In a moment he had vanished, swallowed up by the great press of horses and men.

“Gimli,” Pippin said soberly. “What is wrong with Legolas?” He hesitated. “It seems to be something more than the sea longing. Did you quarrel?”

Gimli harrumphed and reached for his pipe, stalling as he sought for some way to explain. He ought not to have done so; his balance on horseback was shaky enough as it was, but he found he could not bear to have this conversation without the comfort of the familiar habit—and perhaps Arod took pity on him, for his gait seemed to grow even steadier than before. “Yes. Yes, we did,” he said heavily when he had packed the bowl and managed to catch a spark in it. Even as Pippin’s mouth opened, he shook his head in warning. “But if you are a friend to either of us, please do not ask me why.”

“But--” Pippin’s mouth turned down and his eyes widened in pleading. “But if what Legolas said of the danger of our road is true, I would not have thought anything could come between you at this time. I know I wish I had Merry with me now, even as I am glad he is safe in Minas Tirith.” Gimli could only spare a sideways glance, with his attempt to hold his pipe steady and keep his seat, but Pippin looked earnest and determined. “If you would tell me what is wrong, perhaps I could help to reconcile you, so that you need not be at odds so near to the end.”

Gimli knew not whether Pippin had spoken out of kindness, distress at Gimli’s pain, or his own curiosity, but either way, the words pierced exactly where they had been intended to. But still, he could not betray Legolas’s confidence-- nor could he bear to admit aloud to his own folly. “I am grateful for your offer, my friend,” he said, “but this is a matter best sorted between ourselves.”

Still, the words resonated within his mind. _I would not have thought anything could come between you at this time… so near to the end._ Was it not just what he had thought-- and just what he had attempted to mend, as best as he might, before his own body had betrayed him?

He gritted his teeth against the bitter regret. Aloud, he said, “But you are right, Pippin, and I promise I will do what I may to mend things before I have lost my chance.”

*****

Legolas did not return to Gimli or Arod for the rest of the day’s march. The horses moved slowly enough to keep pace with the men on foot, and he stayed for a time among the men of Dol Amroth, whom he knew not at all but whose swan banners reminded him of the haven that awaited him, should the endless agony of this affair ever pause long enough for him to make his escape. He lost himself in his own thought for a time, free of those who might encumber him with conversation.

First he cursed Gimli, for denying him and yet wanting him, for speaking so earnestly of their friendship and then taunting him with what he could not bear to have. Then he cursed his own body for the way it had responded, for the warmth that still seared through his veins at every touch, for the memories that rose up in him at the feeling of Gimli’s arousal pressing into his body-- he cursed himself for still _wanting,_ even though they both knew that he would not be able to bear the paltry amount he might have.

At last, his anger spent, he gazed on the banners of Imrahil’s men and allowed himself to dream of the sea: of the wide expanse of horizon that would await him, the promise of freedom and motion, the chance to sail far, far away and leave these agonies behind. He dreamed of a journey alone on the open water, with cold sea air stinging his cheeks and cooling away the excruciating lust, with the sound of the gulls and the waves singing a song that would wash away from him all the pain of his hopeless, stagnant love. And he dreamed of the home he would find beyond the waters, where he would be welcomed and sheltered and healed, and all of this would cease to matter.

The coming of dusk brought a rude awakening; the company called a halt and Legolas was jolted from his thoughts quite suddenly. He pondered failing to return to Gimli’s side-- but he could not forsake Arod. The dwarf would try to care for the horse, but he could not reach high enough to curry Arod properly, especially since there were no mounting blocks to be had in the wild.

He found Pippin and Gimli building a fire together not far from Aragorn’s central encampment-- squabbling over whether Pippin had fetched enough firewood.

“There is no more to be had,” Pippin insisted. “The men have longer legs; they outpaced me and took every stick that was to be found within a dozen furlongs of this place.”

Legolas turned away from them before he was seen and went out from the main body of men; they might have scoured the forest floor, but he would wager-- yes. There was plenty of dead wood to be had if one were nimble enough to climb, and Legolas had spent much of the last age in the tops of trees.

As he scaled one tree, then another, in search of wood, he was reminded of his childhood, where the depths of the forest had always been his first and favored refuge. The rough scales of bark that provided perfect holds for his hands and feet, the shushing rustle of leaves in his ears and their cool caress against his face brought back memories of ensconcing himself in their embrace to hide from fear, loneliness, or pain. And they could feel his pain, he knew, on a level deeper than he would be able to explain to mortal kind-- he could hear, in the song of their spirit, the lulling murmurs of comfort.

And yet it did not touch him.

As hard as he tried, he could no longer summon up the comfort of those memories. He knew that as a child he had always felt himself cradled, wrapped in the loving embrace of the forest, as at home as a squirrel or a bird in their boughs. Many were the times his father had sought him after long hours away and found him sleeping in the crook of a tree branch, as peaceful as though he lay in his own bed. But now, although he remembered that it had been so, he felt it no longer. Although he knew that the forest reached out to offer him comfort, although he reached for it with the desperate grasp of one drowning, a chasm stretched between them as wide and deep as the sea.

 _All of Middle-earth has forsaken me, then,_ he thought, and he was too weary to do anything but continue his search.

He soon returned to the camp bearing a large bundle of wood on his back-- as much bulk as he could comfortably bind and carry. Pippin’s eyes went wide.

“You read our minds! Our stew would have gone cold long before the barley softened,” Pippin said, and helped untie the cords about the load with his nimble fingers while Gimli wordlessly took the sticks and built up their failing fire.

Gimli and Legolas exchanged no words as the preparations for supper were completed, and their eyes did not meet even when they sat across the fire from one another to eat their humble meal of barley, dried beef, and day-old bread.

“The camp is quiet,” Pippin said, gazing around with unease. He sat tucked close between the two of them, his back rounded against the night. “Everyone is frightened.” He gazed up at Legolas with quiet entreaty. “Do you have a song for us?”

Legolas hesitated. “I know no songs in Elvish that seem right to my heart this night,” he said at length. “But there is a song of Rohan that I learned long ago.” He paused, trying to fix the unfamiliar words in his memory, and after a few minutes’ thought, he sang in the slow, mournful cadence of the Rohirrim:

 _Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife;_  
_willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð._  
_Ungelic is us._  
_Wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre._  
_Fæst is þæt eglond, fenne biworpen._  
_Sindon wælreowe weras þær on ige;_  
_willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð._  
_Ungelice is us._  
_Wulfes ic mines widlastum wenum dogode;_  
_þonne hit wæs renig weder ond ic reotugu sæt,_  
_þonne mec se beaducafa bogum bilegde,_  
_wæs me wyn to þon, wæs me hwæþre eac lað._  
_Wulf, min Wulf, wena me þine_  
_seoce gedydon, þine seldcymas,_  
_murnende mod, nales meteliste._  
_Gehyrest þu, Eadwacer? Uncerne earne hwelp_  
_bireð wulf to wuda._  
_þæt mon eaþe tosliteð þætte næfre gesomnad wæs,  
_ _uncer giedd geador._

Gimli and Pippin sat still when he had finished, transfixed by the sadness of his voice and the melancholy notes, which still seemed to whisper in the silence. Legolas stared into the fire, the bright flames searing ghostly images into his eyes. “It is the tale of a maiden sent among hostile tribesmen as a peaceweaver, then returned to her tribe, though she must leave her new lover behind. Or perhaps she left her lover behind when she was sent away from her own people, only to be bound to an unwanted husband in the cause of peace. I cannot say for certain. Perhaps Éomer could tell you better,” Legolas said. “But she is not with her love, and she is fated forever to be unhappy without him. _’Ungelic is us,’_ he said again. ‘We are not alike.’”

Gimli made a small sound deep in his throat, a grunt of protest. His knuckles went white on the stick he was using to poke the fire. “Legolas--”

Pippin glanced back and forth between them with some alarm. “I’m going to find a privy,” he announced abruptly, and strode away.

“The halfling grows wiser,” Gimli said, and tossed his stick into the flames. “Legolas, I would not have chosen to do that were it in my power to amend; I could not help it. I am sorry--”

“Don’t,” said Legolas. “Please.”

Gimli sighed. “I must,” he said. “I am sure you can bear little more of my apologies, but I know not what more I have to offer. For Pippin spoke to me in wisdom earlier today as well, reminding me that we ought not go to our deaths with a quarrel between us.”

“I am not angry with you,” said Legolas, and he could only be furious with himself that it was true, the upset bleeding into his voice and holding his shoulders so rigid that Gimli looked on him with dismay.

“I do not ask you not to be angry,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I hardly have that right. But I would cause you as little misery as I may before the end-- you must only tell me how that may be achieved. If you wish me to keep my distance from you, I will walk with the men tomorrow, and you may ride on your own.”

Legolas swallowed thickly, unable to respond for a moment, feeling the momentary energy of anger burn away into smoke, leaving his limbs nothing but chill, heavy coal. “I do not wish you distant from me,” he whispered. “I wish--” _I wish you loved me._ “I wish I had never started this by asking you for what you could not give.”

“I am at equal fault.” Gimli looked down, his face red and ashamed. “As you know. I should have explained what I wanted, but I thought--”

“And I should not have assumed you knew.” Legolas shook his head. “But it is useless to wish. Pippin is wise indeed, Gimli, and you are right: I would not have us go to our deaths with strife and regret between us.” Though the latter could not be helped.

“Perhaps,” Gimli ventured, flushing redder, “perhaps if I sat before you on the horse--”

Legolas shook his head, gazing at his own lap now so as not to meet Gimli’s eyes. “That would help nothing.” It was a new feeling, this lust, this desire-- and in that other wish-world he would have been glad to explore it, to tease himself and his husband with the promise of later delight, to test the limits of their endurance and their hunger for one another. But this world was not that one, and in this world Legolas would only burn uselessly until he was consumed in cold fire. He wanted it no more.

“You should rest. It will not be more than another ride or two before we arrive at the Morannon. I would not have you fall there out of sleepless weariness.” Legolas tipped his head back, watching the smoke of their fire climb until it was lost in the dim sky.

“I would say the same to you.”

“I will stay near.” Legolas grimaced. “For Pippin’s sake, if none other.”

Gimli sighed. “Thank you for that. I could not explain our quarrel to him.”

“No,” Legolas agreed. “He is too young-- too innocent. Let him find out such things in his own time-- or rather, pray that he does not.”

“Aye,” Gimli agreed gruffly, and fed the fire, sending a shower of sparks aloft.

Pippin came back after a time-- claiming he had been given a skin of wine (or perhaps, Legolas guessed, he had creatively interpreted the meaning of ‘given.’)

“Could it have been a cask of ale?” Legolas teased gently.

“If I could have carr-” Pippin blushed. “They had many and we have none.” He poured some for each of them, and they drank in quiet for a time.

“You are a halfling after the legend of Bilbo Baggins indeed,” Legolas observed at last when his cup was all but empty. “But take care you do not get caught, for others may not see it as their duty to share without being asked.”

He kept his attention on Pippin as Gimli finished his share of the meal and set his cup aside, using their talk as excuse to turn away and lay out his bedroll. He seemed to decide against setting up a tent and arranged himself beside the fire instead, for it was still early enough in the season to be quite chilly.

“Do you think Frodo and Sam are,” Pippin swallowed. “Warm tonight?”

Legolas guessed the last words had replaced ‘alive.’

“Mithrandir believes they are well,” he said gently. “And that we do the best thing we may to help them.”

Pippin nodded sleepily, spreading his own bedroll and curling up inside. “Keep trying to make up,” he said muzzily before he put his head down. “It will be worth it. Wait and see.”


	9. Chapter 9

Ash from the great quake that accompanied the fall of Barad-Dur yet hung in the air over the battlefield, but all fighting had finished, and now the men of Minas Tirith and their allies went among the wounded and the slain, retrieving their dead and giving aid to the wounded.

Legolas and Gimli went among them, seeking their own small comrade, their hearts united for once-- and heavy with worry.

“Do you see him?”

“Not yet.” Legolas swallowed down the lump in his throat and continued scanning the battlefield, one hand hand shading his eyes against the glare of the restored sun. “He is here somewhere; surely he is here somewhere--”

“I told Gandalf he should not have come,” fumed Gimli, but Legolas knew that the anger in his voice was only a cover for desperation. “I told him! Elrond did not wish him to come with us in the first place; he is too young to die in battle; too young--”

“I know.” All the figures still standing were too tall; even with his new-accustomed tactic of sweeping his eyes lower, Legolas could not see Pippin. He had found Gimli thus, but they had had no time to speak, no time to rejoice or to regret or to even attempt to understand the strange, glorious truth of their victory, before they had both realized that their small friend was nowhere to be seen. “I know, and I cannot find him!” With the cavity of his heart slowly frosting over, Legolas turned his gaze down. Down to the fallen.

“Wait,” said Gimli abruptly. “Wait, Legolas-- I dare not trust my own eyes. Is that the foot of a halfling?”

Legolas set his shoulder to the thigh of a great troll, and with Gimli’s help they managed to roll its bulk off the foot that did indeed turn out to be Pippin, squashed beyond breath and senseless.

Legolas fell to his knees and lifted the halfling, opening his mouth to speak-- but what he might have said he would never know, because at that moment three great eagles swept by overhead, their harsh voices cawing in triumph-- and in their talons, Legolas spied the tattered and worn forms of Frodo and Samwise.

“Ai!” Legolas shouted. “The Ringbearers! The Ringbearers come! Mithrandir has saved them!”

Pippin’s lashes fluttered. “Frodo?” he mumbled.

“He lives,” Gimli choked, overcome by relief in this moment so long hoped for in the face of despair. “Hurry; let us get him to Aragorn.”

Legolas rose in haste and together they set forth across the field of battle with their precious burden, bringing Pippin to the same place the eagles had laid Frodo and Sam down gently. Mithrandir and Aragorn bent over the two bedraggled halflings separately, then united over the still, pale form of Frodo. Legolas smelled fresh blood and closed his eyes with dismay as he saw the ragged stump of Frodo’s finger.

“Will they live?” Pippin whispered.

“They are in the best of hands,” Legolas promised him. “As are you.”

The halfling’s eyes fluttered shut, and Legolas stepped forward to lay him down near Sam, where he might be cared for when the others’ most pressing need was past. Then he stepped back to join Gimli.

“There are many more wounded that we may yet help,” he said.

“Aye,” Gimli agreed, gruff, and scrubbed his filthy hand over tear-stained cheeks.

They went out together, united in their purpose to save all the survivors they could.

“It is a greater wound than any dealt in this battle,” said Gimli quietly, after a time, “to see them lying thus, brought so low by a war in which they needed have no part.”

“Yes,” said Legolas, keeping his voice equally low, though they were in no danger of being heard. Indeed, he felt he might have given up his life and heart and more, if only he could have prevented such hurt from descending upon their smaller friends. As it was, one of those things still remained to him-- for what little good it did. “It was a sacrifice they should not have had to make-- but I suppose times as dire as ours have been demand greater risks, much though we may dislike them.”

Gimli made a grunting noise that suggested disagreement. “Frodo and Sam may have been the only ones who could have carried the Ring as far as they did, and yet succeeded in their mission-- but I still think Pippin need not have come here.” He glanced at Legolas, just a quick sideways tilt of the head, but Legolas saw it. “There are necessary risks, and then there are ones that need not be taken.”

Legolas made a noncommittal humming noise, sensing the direction of Gimli’s thoughts but unwilling to help lead him there.

Gimli was undeterred. “For instance,” he pressed, “it may be necessary to make such a mad gambit as we have made, to throw ourselves towards certain death when we have no other chance to succeed in a mission. But for a single warrior to fight so recklessly as to abandon his own guard in battle, when his death might otherwise be avoided-- that is nothing more than folly.”

“I care not for folly,” Legolas said. “If by my folly I may prevent others from dying who will not return from the Halls of Mandos thereafter, but remain until the Second Singing-- or beyond. For who knows what will happen then?” He shrugged.

“When you would run behind enemy lines where none are yet in jeopardy, only to throw yourself at a line of trolls many yards wide and dozens deep?” Gimli spat to one side. “We were to be a holding action, delaying Sauron for as long as we might, distracting him while the halflings made for the mountain. Such tactics do not call for mad charges and suicidal sorties ventured alone.”

“I was out of arrows.”

“Arrows lay thick on the ground and bristled from the bodies of many who fell,” Gimli growled. “Do not think I am unaware of your intent.” His eyes flashed up. “Had you died, I would have grieved you deeply, elf. Would it have been worth the suffering you gave to me, merely to escape your own?”

Legolas flinched. “Gimli, I did not--” He stopped. “My intention was not to punish you,” he said stiffly.

“Was it not?” Gimli glared up at him for another moment longer, and then subsided abruptly. “No, I did not mean to suggest that. But you act selfishly when you would throw away your life without sparing a thought to its worth. What would I have told Merry, when we returned to Minas Tirith without you? Or think of Aragorn, who would have carried forever the guilt of your death in his final charge. Or--” His face twisted as though he had bitten into a lime, but he continued. “Or what of your father and your people at home? You would have gone away from them never to return? I am not the only one who would have grieved you, and I would thank you to remember that next time.”

The thought of his father brought a cold, hard lump to Legolas’s throat, but he swallowed it down. “You speak truly,” he said. “I would not impose upon anyone guilt at my death.” But grief at his absence-- that his friends would have to learn to bear anyway. As would his father, though it rent Legolas’s heart to leave him. Thranduil had not wished Legolas to go even to Rivendell to deliver the message of Gollum’s escape, and now Legolas would never return to him-- would leave him alone with his grief and his realm, with no family left to him.

It was almost enough to give him pause in his course-- but then he imagined staying here, with the constant reminder of his hopeless love and the call of the sea stealing the joy from all else that remained, and he could not. His father, at least, still had the woods he loved. Even that comfort was gone for Legolas now.

Gimli nodded firmly, unaware of his thought. “I am glad you will not,” he said. “And I am happier still that the fighting is done, so you need not be tempted. I hope that you will yet come with me to Aglarond-- and I mean to follow you to Fangorn, if you will yet lead.” He laid his hand carefully on Legolas’s forearm, avoiding the skin of his hand and setting his palm instead on the leather vambrace Legolas wore.

Legolas could not answer at once, his heart in his throat. He had near forgotten his vow to take Gimli to that place-- and to endure Aglarond, the consequences of his rash promise now far worse than when he had undertaken it.

He calculated for a moment, picturing the map of Middle-Earth in his mind. No, he would never see the caves with Gimli; nor would he lead the dwarf through Fangorn. It would be too far from the sea for him to journey, and he would not approach Mirkwood near enough to farewell his father, or even ask to be met halfway.

“We shall see,” he said at last, and tried not to flinch at the spark of hope that kindled in Gimli’s eyes.

They worked in quiet for the hours that followed. The battle had been grievous, yes, and dead and wounded lay thick on the ground. Still, the most of them who had come were still alive, and many injured could still be saved, and there was hope in that thought, even if the hope was not for Legolas himself.

It was not until later that evening that they could finally speak with Aragorn again and see their wounded friends. “How do they fare?” asked Gimli, gazing down at the three sleeping halflings in their beds.

Aragorn looked up and gave a tired smile. “They will live,” he said. “Pippin is in no danger. Frodo and Sam are exhausted and underfed, but they will come through once they have rested, and we will yet be able to praise them for what they have accomplished. I have spoken to Éomer, and we have sent messengers to Minas Tirith to call to us those who have been left behind-- Merry especially, and Éowyn as well. But Faramir will remain in the city, to make everything ready for the next great event—this one happier than the last.” He led them out of the shelter, where they might talk without disturbing those at rest.

The coronation. He did not say it, but they all knew, and-- and, Legolas realized now, he knew what came after.

“So,” said Gimli gruffly. “Gondor will have its king once more.”

Aragorn nodded. “It will. And I will be honored to have our Fellowship and my fellow Hunters by my side as well-- that all the free peoples of Middle-earth might give their blessing to our future.” His eyes strayed to Legolas.

“I will stand at your side for the coronation,” Legolas agreed. “And your wedding as well.” But then….

Gimli beamed, but Aragorn’s countenance remained sober; he was not misled.

“My lord Aragorn!” A healer appeared as if conjured, out of breath. “The halfling-- Peregrin-- he is near waking.”

Aragorn rushed away and Gimli followed, much to Legolas’s relief. It was well that Pippin would recover completely. Legolas hoped that Frodo and Sam would soon follow. Then the coronation and the wedding might proceed apace and free him.

Legolas turned away, not needing to consult the sky to see where the south lay-- South along Anduin to the Bay of Belfalas, then beyond with the gulls mewing above and the salt wind in his hair. And then the curve of Middle-Earth vanishing beneath the hull as their sails filled...


	10. Chapter 10

It began later that evening.

Legolas had been expecting it, truly-- had, indeed, been surprised that it had taken so long. But then, their road had been hard and grim, and the time for pleasantries limited. Or perhaps he had dared to hope that Aragorn might have warned them not to ask him-- but it was not to be. For that evening, after the worst of the wounded had been tended and while many of those still hale were celebrating their unexpected victory with what stores of wine and ale remained to them, Elrond’s twin sons descended upon Legolas with the unstoppable force of a falling axe-blow.

“Legolas!” crowed Elrohir, wrapping an arm around Legolas’s shoulders before he could demur and beaming so brightly that Legolas knew without a doubt what would be discussed. “Just the person we had hoped to find!”

“And now you have found me,” he said, keeping his tone polite but trying to warn with his reticence that they ought not ask him the question that he knew was inevitable.

“Why are you so glum?” said Elladan, swooping in from the other side. “It is a night of celebration-- and you more than anyone have reason to rejoice, if we have read you rightly!”

“You do not,” Legolas said. “A word or even a page tells little of the whole book.”

“Ah, but surely this page is very telling,” Elrohir protested. “How could it be otherwise, when it is so clear to Elven eyes that you are newly wed?”

Legolas did not return his smile. Ever the sons of Elrond were difficult-- they had run wild for long years, caring only for one another, sharing short commons and poor sleep in their restless desire to hunt orcs. They had no use for the finer matters of diplomacy, preferring to leave such to their father and their sister. “If you will not respect my first words, then why should I give you more?”

“Well-scored,” Elladan pretended to be hit. “But Legolas, you must tell us what is amiss. Perhaps we may help to mend it.”

“Nothing can mend a choice poorly made,” Legolas said through clenched teeth. “Or a troth given unwisely in haste-- which it is now too late to revoke.”

They sobered at once and released him, but did not go. “But Greenleaf,” said Elladan. “You plainly dote upon the dwarf-- and for a wonder, he upon you as well!”

“Does it indeed seem so to you?” Legolas said bitterly. “I thought it true once myself, to my sorrow!”

That quieted them; they exchanged a speaking glance. “Has he toyed with you and spurned you, then, after the way of mortals?”

“It is none of your affair.” Legolas lifted his chin, his pride stung.

“We will teach him his mistake,” Elrohir threatened, his temper hot, but Legolas shook his head.

“Would you shame me all the more as you presume to find an easy solution to my grief?” Legolas felt his own temper flare within his breast, hot and ready for fighting. “Nay, you will say no word to him. For he and I have spoken long on this very matter, and he had no malice toward me in his heart when he acted as he did. It was misunderstanding between us merely-- though harmful to me in ways he did not perceive until too late. Yet I love him for all his faults. And he me, in his way!”

“That is plain to be seen, at least.” Glee and anger alike had vanished from Elladan’s voice; he looked upon Legolas with the same infuriating sympathy that had been so clear in Aragorn’s eyes. “We are sorry for our misunderstanding, Legolas. Truly, we thought yours a match made in both hearts.”

“You are not the first ones to have made that mistake.” Legolas looked up and over their heads, so he would not have to see the pity in their eyes. “Nor will you be the last, to my regret.”

“And you are certain we cannot--” Elrohir began, but Elladan laid a hand on his arm and shook his head until his twin subsided. “Well. If he is unable to perceive the worth of your devotion, then he is undeserving of it.”

“And yet _deserving_ comes not into the situation.” Legolas kept his gaze fixed up at the sky, at the stars-- visible again with the dissipation of Sauron’s cloud-- at the distant horizon that one day soon he would cross. The Valar knew the day could not come quickly enough. “If you would be friends to me, you will speak of this to no one. It is my affair, and I will handle it as I see fit.”

“We will leave you in peace, then,” said Elrohir. “But if you need anything, you may come to us at any time. We will listen.”

“I thank you for your generous offer,” said Legolas, but in his heart he knew he would not.

The twins stood, Elladan resting a hand on Legolas’s shoulder for just a moment before they went off together, fading quickly into two silhouetted figures, dark-haired and dark-cloaked against the dusk of evening. Legolas did not relax his shoulders until they were gone, but to his surprise when he leaned back and rested a hand in the grass, his fingers bumped into something unexpected.

He lifted it and could not help but smile sadly, shaking his head at their strange generosity. They had left him a wineskin.

Legolas lifted the wine, weighing it in one hand. He did not like to turn to wine after trouble, but this awkward interview promised to be only the first of many similar.

At least with most, he would not have to confess to the identity of the suitor who had rejected him. Perhaps he could imply his husband had died upon the field of battle, or otherwise been lost. None other save perhaps Galadriel would kn--

Legolas stood very still, the whole of the world reeling about his ears, the skin of wine all but forgotten in his hand.

Galadriel.

His mind presented him with the memory of Gimli’s smiling face, upturned toward the Queen of Lothlórien, the worship he felt plain for any with wit to see.

But of course Gimli loved her. He had been a fool not to see it before; the dwarf threatened any who spoke indifferently of her beauty or spoke of her sorcery as evil. He had made himself her champion-- little matter that he could not have her; Legolas knew all too well that one could not always choose where one loved, or take back the unwise gift of a heart.

Legolas closed his eyes to make the stars cease their dizzy spinning, and felt again the weight of the wine in his hand. Galadriel. Perhaps Gimli had thought wistfully of her while they--

The weight of his anguish threatened to drive him to his knees.

Yes, he would accept this gift of wine, and whatever solace it offered. But first he would away and find a secret nook where he might not be found by sentry or guard. There he would nurse his grief alone before he fell into anguished dreams of Gimli’s hands upon him, dreams which might only be escaped by turning from them and plunging himself into the tide of the rising sea.

Glancing aside to ensure none remarked his whereabouts, Legolas slipped away.


	11. Chapter 11

The days passed with strange languor after Sauron fell-- as if the mad rush toward confrontation had abandoned Gimli and left him to float in a dream. The peace put him in mind of Lothlórien, and of the Lady-- and he would have been glad to drowse among his thoughts, were he not increasingly aware that, for the elf, this dream was little better than a nightmare.

Legolas stayed at his side, and for much of the day all seemed well between them-- but his smiles were dim and his eyes ever prone to stray south toward Anduin and the sea beyond.

At night it was far worse. Gimli often arose to use the chamber pot and became aware of the elf standing upon their shared balcony, perched atop the rail and leaning southward as if he wished to take flight. Gimli was too afraid of alarming him to step out; if he fell from such a pose… or leaped….?

And even that was not the worst of it.

“Yes, it seems Legolas is wed,” he overheard one day. The sons of Elrond sat at wine, apparently unaware that he was near, and one leaned in to speak to his brother. “It is plain to see upon him, and yet he seems sorrowful-- far more so than mere sea-longing could account for.”

“Aye. His husband wanted him not, it seems.”

“What a fool!” The first sat back, wine splashing as he slapped the table in anger. “The Prince of Mirkwood would surely be regarded a fine catch in any land. All mortals who have eyes desire him-- and any who has a heart that is not carved of stone could never bear to see him suffer so.”

“And yet when I spoke to him of it, all he would say was that he had chosen poorly,” the other answered. “He gave no name-- yet surely I should like to upbraid the churl who has treated him with such indifference.” They did not look toward Gimli at all, and the tilt of their heads seemed poised, fraught with tension.

Abruptly Gimli was no longer so sure they were unaware of his presence, and he addressed himself to his food, then excused himself as rapidly as he could contrive without giving the appearance of undue haste.

So Legolas had spoken to the sons of Elrond, then. And unless fate had decided to wound him with cruel coincidence, they had staged that conversation for Gimli’s hearing. Had Legolas told them-- had he asked them to do so? But no, after all they had spoken, after all his assurances that he did not blame Gimli for his heart, he would not do such a thing.

Would he?

And yet how would the twins otherwise know what had befallen him? _It is plain to see,_ the one had said. Perhaps they had cornered Legolas upon realizing that he had failed to hide his sorrow? But that did not seem to fit…

Aragorn was scarce to be seen these days, busy as he was making preparations for his coronation. But the only others Gimli could think to ask were Gandalf or Legolas, and he would not dare to approach either of them with such a question.

He found the man later that evening, walking alone away from the lodgings where they had all taken up residence. Perhaps savoring his last opportunity for freedom, before he would be a king surrounded by guards and subjects who had need of him. Gimli almost regretted his interruption, but his face still burned from the conversation he had overheard, and he could not let an opportunity to ask go by unused-- for who knew when he would have another?

“Aragorn,” he said, loudly enough to alert his friend of his presence while he was still some distance away. “I regret to disturb you, my friend, but I would ask you a question.”

Aragorn did not even start-- likely he had already been aware that he was not alone. “Gimli,” he said, turning. If he was bothered by the disturbance, he did not show it. “You know I welcome your company. Ask your question, and I will give you an answer if I may. What weighs on your mind?” But of course he already knew. “Is it anything to do with Legolas?”

“What else?” said Gimli heavily, making up the distance between them and falling into step beside Aragorn, who shortened his stride so that Gimli might keep up without effort. “I heard Elladan and Elrohir conversing earlier--”

Aragorn grimaced. “My brothers have the subtlety of the dwarvish battle-cry.” Before Gimli could decide whether or not to be offended, Aragorn spoke again. “Tell me, what did they say?”

“It was--” Gimli hesitated. He did not wish to reveal the whole contents of the conversation. “It was something of elven marriage-- that it was plain to see that Legolas was wed. I did not think he was so close with the sons of Elrond that he might have spoken to them of our situation, and yet they seemed to know much of his troubles. I wondered--”

Aragorn said a word in elvish that Gimli did not understand, but it did not sound polite. “I forgot,” he muttered. “How could I have forgotten? And it will only grow worse for him.”

“What?” said Gimli, even more unsettled than he had been before. What had he done now, to unknowingly increase his friend’s pain?

“You will not like to hear what I must tell you,” Aragorn said. “But I suppose it is only fair that you should know. It is another condition of elven marriage; you were right. All elves who look upon Legolas now will know that he is married.”

Gimli’s heart jumped into his throat. “Will they know who-- that is, will they know that I--?” If the elves knew that Legolas was wedded to a dwarf, they would surely only increase their hatred for Gimli’s race-- and perhaps they would mock Legolas for his choice. Was that what the twins had meant when they said that he had chosen poorly?

_Chosen poorly._ And surely that was true, for Legolas at least, so why this sudden surge of indignation, of defensive ire? How did Gimli feel he had the right to defend Legolas’s choice of himself as a spouse, though he had proven to cause his friend already so much grief?

“No,” said Aragorn. “They will not know that unless Legolas tells them-- or unless they have seen the two of you together ere this, and know enough of you both to guess. But they--”

“But they will ask,” finished Gimli, the earlier offense settling into a bitter coating over his tongue and throat.

“Exactly,” said Aragorn. “And in only a few weeks, I expect a large assembly of guests from Rivendell and Lothlórien.”

Gimli groaned and scrubbed his hand over his beard. “Aragorn, I--”

Aragorn merely shook his head. “Would not have hurt Legolas this way for any amount in gold or truesilver,” he finished for him. “This I know. And Legolas does also-- or he would not be as he is; he would have departed from your lodging and would not return save to the wedding, which he feels he is bound to attend.” Aragorn grimaced. “And I would have him at my side, but… I think I shall tell him he need not stay on my account, Gimli.”

“He will stay,” Gimli said softly. “The elf’s word is his bond.”

“I deem you are right in this.” Aragorn set a hand on Gimli’s shoulder. “Would that I could tell you some way this might be easily mended, but I confess, I see none.”

Gimli cast down his eyes. “Aye,” he said softly. He grasped for a moment, seeking something more to say, but it was as Aragorn said-- there was nothing that could be done.

They stood in hopeless silence for a moment more before Gimli finally excused himself, leaving Aragorn in peace and trudging back to his own lodgings with a heavy heart.


	12. Chapter 12

The days leading up to Aragorn’s coronation brought guests from all quarters who had heard the happy news of Sauron’s defeat and Gondor’s new king. Though none of the visiting embassies were the guests from Rivendell that Aragorn awaited, there was a welcome surprise-- or, a surprise that should have been welcome-- in the form of a small party of dwarves from Erebor, sent to welcome the new king, and to bring news of their own victories-- and their losses.

Gimli learned with dismay of the fall of Erebor’s king, Dain Ironfoot, and the ascension of his son Thorin-- and was gratified to hear that his own family was still well, if weary from long battles and care. Yet he found that the arrival of his kin was not the great relief he had hoped for, after months of traveling alone among men and elves and halflings. The feeling of being alone among other kindreds was what had drawn him and Legolas together, all those weeks ago, and now his attachment to and worry for the elf had spoiled his joy in the reunion with his own people.

Legolas grew even more scarce after the arrival of the dwarves, and after the grand celebrations that marked Aragorn’s coronation-- perhaps he awaited with dread the arrival of his own kin, or perhaps he merely anticipated Aragorn’s wedding, and the last tether holding him to Middle-Earth.

Gimli found that grief and care taxed his stamina in a way that battle or feats of strength did not. He spent the days after the coronation brooding, dreading the arrival of the wedding guests perhaps as much even as Legolas, and spent his nights listening anxiously to the half-imagined sounds of the elf’s subtle movements upon the balcony, fearing that any moment Legolas might will himself to fall.

On one of those days, he found himself once more at odds, with hours left in the day and nothing left to do. Dwarves were not made for idleness, and he might have sought out some task to which to apply himself-- but the day was warm and he was tired, and almost against his will he succumbed to the allure of his newly-made bed and found himself drifting as he lay gazing up into the shadows of the ceiling. It was difficult to sleep at night knowing that Legolas was without, perched upon the balcony with such precarious footing. But at midday he might rest knowing that the elf was safe and sound upon errands of his own within the city.

Gimli toed off his boots and let them drop to the floor, then sighed, wiggling his toes but too lazy to reach down and pull off his socks. He let himself drift away on the tide of sleep, a little overwarm from the sun beating in upon the stone balcony but not much caring. Perhaps he would rest; the time of day was strange for sleeping and he was fully clad. Perhaps he would not--

*****

Gimli was not sure when Legolas had climbed into bed with him. Perhaps he had returned from the market while Gimli slept, and meant to surprise him. Perhaps Gimli had climbed into Legolas’s bed by mistake, unthinking. It mattered not; he was there, and he slipped into Gimli’s arms, smiling as he had smiled of old: sweet and mysterious and very warm.

_“Hervenn nín,”_ Legolas greeted him. “You were long away.”

Some part of Gimli groaned with dismay, but that part was split away from the rest, and though he knew this for a dream, he might not govern its process.

“Come, let me love you so that we will sleep the better,” Legolas said, and drifted down along his chest, mouthing softly at all the sensitive places he seemed to know so well.

Gimli’s cock ached for him, a brand of heat, and Legolas teased, sure in his power to arouse Gimli beyond bearing. He tarried along the way, then backtracked, and squirmed so as to make Gimli arch and groan without giving him enough to satisfy his longing. But at last Legolas descended, his hair a whisper of feather-light softness against Gimli’s thighs, and his hot mouth covered Gimli, sliding all the way down--

Gimli awoke with a strangled shout, drenched in sweat and panting as though he had just run a race-- or indeed, had just ended an enthusiastic bout of lovemaking. It took him only moments to regain his bearings, to remember that he was yet alone in his room-- and then he gazed down his own body in dismay, reaching to unfasten his trousers and knowing already what he would find.

How dare he keep doing this? He rose from his bed in haste, nearly tripping over his own abandoned shoes, and hurried to his wardrobe for clean clothing, and then to the washstand for water and a cloth. Once was bad enough, twice even worse, but _again_ \--

He froze in the middle of pulling on a clean pair of breeches, casting a guilty look at the door. Legolas would not yet have returned, would he? He would not have heard?

This was not usual. Never mind that it verged on cruelty to desire Legolas yet when he could not give the elf what he wanted and needed, but never in Gimli’s experience had a lust lingered for so long after its fulfillment. It was almost as though his desire for Legolas had not been fulfilled. Perhaps it was their differences-- Legolas’s body was unlike any he had ever experienced, and their friendship unlike any other bond Gimli had felt for a shieldbrother before. He thought again wistfully that he would have gladly had Legolas more than once, and now that the war was over he could even indulge the thought-- meeting Legolas again when they both came to perform favors for Aragorn, sharing friendship during the day and blankets at night--

But it was a cruel fantasy indeed, and Gimli felt disloyal merely thinking of it. And more than that, he could not help but feel that after Aragorn’s wedding, Legolas would do his utmost never to see Gimli again.

Gimli sighed. There were many dwarves within the city now, and if he were not distracted with his cares, he would go among them. Some were his shieldbrothers of old; others were the most beautiful and desirable dwarrowdams, any of whom would make a fine wife and adviser in his plans to settle Aglarond. But though it might be wise to join his own kind, and to seek solace in the arms of someone who would not misunderstand, he could not bring himself to think of them. The very thought of lying with someone other than the elf made his stomach churn.

The insight troubled him deeply; he would have to ponder on it and discover what it meant that he had grown so attached to Legolas he could not bear to think of losing the elf.

Madness. His father would box his ears for befriending the son of Thranduil!

Gimli got up gloomily and set about cleaning himself.


	13. Chapter 13

Clear trumpets gave the only warning that a party of wedding guests drew near the city. Gimli watched in alarm as Legolas went out, springing up on the rail for a better view.

“It is the wedding party,” the elf said. “I spy Elrond and his daughter, the Evenstar. There are many elves of Rivendell, and also of Lothlórien, in their train.” Legolas hesitated. “The Lady’s banner is there,” he said, and Gimli’s heart gave a leap, then a lurch as Legolas flashed a sober glance over his shoulder to see his reaction. “I see her now in the van, riding upon a fine white palfrey.” His voice was low. “You will wish to go and greet her, I have no doubt.”

“I--” Gimli knew not how to respond. “Legolas--”

Legolas sprang backwards off the rail, landing lightly beside Gimli. “Come,” he said briskly. “We will go together.”

They walked from their house to the city gates in silence, descending swiftly enough that it did not seem strange when no words were spoken between them. Gimli’s insides were a mess of anticipation and uncertainty-- would the Lady deign to look upon him in kindness, as she had done months before in Lothlórien? Would she even remember him, among so many worthy personages, so many other admirers, so many mortals who had never before been struck by her beauty and magnificence? Would she spare a word or a thought for one dwarf who had appointed himself her champion?

Would she… and the thought struck him so hard that he nearly stopped in his tracks. Would she look upon him and know what he had done to his friend? Would she be disappointed in him?

Perhaps she would-- and she would be right. Gimli had no doubt, of a sudden, that it would take the Lady of Lothlórien no time at all before she guessed the true name of Legolas’s poorly-chosen husband. She would not even need to look within their minds to find the knowledge.

Strangely hesitant, Gimli followed after Legolas, who led the way with long, determined strides. The elf moved as if he would have his secret known and answer all the impertinent questions at once. It seemed he would do this after the manner of a warrior whose wound grew baneful and the healers said he must have the arm or leg removed-- the sooner the cut was made, the better.

By the time they reached the first gate of the city-- as yet still under repair by men, and later to be replaced by dwarves, if Gimli had any say in the matter-- the party had drawn close, and heralds began to cry aloud the names Legolas had already spoken.

Gimli glanced up and spied an official retinue setting forth from the pinnacle of the citadel, bearing Aragorn’s banner from the war, its embroidery sparkling in the sun on its field of sable.

Gimli and Legolas stood aside, waiting politely in a secluded niche for Aragorn to come and savor his joyous reunion with his intended; after that there would be plenty of time for reunions both sweet and melancholy.

By and by the king arrived, and swept his bride from her feet, circling and laughing with her in his arms. Gimli stole a glance at Legolas’s face. The elf watched without smiling, his whole mien sober.

“They have waited long,” Legolas said at last, when Aragorn finally set the lady back upon her feet and turned to greet the Lord Elrond. His bearing was regal, but he proved unable to hold back the smile that spread across his face, and Gimli thought that he had never seen Aragorn so happy. “I am glad that their labors have finally been rewarded.”

He did not look glad, but Gimli knew better than to say such to him. “As am I,” he said instead, as noncommittal a response as he could think to give.

“I think we may approach now,” said Legolas, after another moment. “They will surely speak at length later, when they have more time. Now we may greet old friends-- unless you, too, would rather not do so in public.” His tone did not change, still carefully light, but Gimli saw his jaw tense slightly.

The words gave him pause. What, exactly, did Legolas think he wished? He hardly had delusions of acquiring any more of the Lady’s attention than she might accord to any devoted servant. Nor was there anything he would have said to her that could not be said-- indeed, had not already been said-- before any others.

He did not ask Legolas what he expected. “No, we ought to go now, and give our greetings, so that the friends of the king do not appear churlish!” He, too, tried for lightness, and thought he did not succeed.

Legolas gave him another quick, unreadable look. “Let us go then.”

They emerged from the shadows where they had concealed themselves, stepping out into sunlight. Many heads turned to notice their arrival, and Gimli was suddenly sorry he had not chosen to come separately-- but it was too late. He and Legolas were clearly together, a circumstance that would surely associate them in the minds of the new arrivals.

The Lady turned and smiled on them, radiant as the sun. “Legolas! Gimli! It is well to see the two of you again-- and in company with one another, as you should be.” Her smile deepend and took on a note of mischief that made Gimli’s heart sink. “Has your sojourn in Lothlórien put paid to the old grief between dwarf and elfkind, as I had hoped?”

“For my part, I have no further grievance with elves,” Gimli said, a bit more gruffly than he had intended. “I value my comrade Legolas as much as any I have ever raised weapons with against the great enemy who is now departed.”

“And for mine, the dwarves have no claim upon my ire,” Legolas said smoothly but she frowned then as she looked on him, tilting her head, and took his hands.

“I am glad of that, Greenleaf,” she said gently.

“But I cannot speak for the rest of elfkind-- nor can Gimli speak for dwarfkind.” Legolas finished, and bowed. “Yet perhaps it may be, one day, that the old grievances will be forgotten.” He looked aside to Elrond, and Gimli marked a single flaw in his composure-- a muscle taut in the side of his jaw jumping as he met the Lord of Rivendell’s gaze.

Legolas held his back straight and his head high while Elrond studied him in much the same manner as Galadriel. Gimli watched the expression on the elf-lord’s face change from surprise to confusion, and he held his breath, waiting and praying that Elrond would not speak.

Galadriel spoke up before he could. “It pleases me to see so many of your fellowship come through such sore trials,” she said, “and we will surely have to speak at greater length later. For now, allow us to simply extend our pride and admiration at the task you have accomplished.”

“There will be much time later to speak,” said Aragorn, seeming to recover himself from his distraction, although he did not let go of the Lady Arwen’s hand. “For now, let me welcome you to the city of Minas Tirith. Lodgings have been arranged for your party, if you will follow us into the city.”

“That would be welcome,” said the Lady, “for we have come a long way, and are eager to take advantage of your hospitality.” She made a quick motion with her hand, indicating that her party should fall into line with her as she followed Aragorn into the city.

“Shall we accompany them?” Gimli asked. “Or do you think--” He stopped, blinking in surprise at the empty air.

Legolas had disappeared.

*****

Gimli did not see Legolas for the rest of the day, much as he looked. He left the procession of elves shortly after they entered the city and returned to their lodgings, perhaps hoping Legolas might be found there, but it was not to be. Indeed, their house was empty, for the rest of the Fellowship had remained with the guests, likely wishing to greet old friends or meet new ones.

Gimli did not dare. For all that the elves might not be able to read anything by looking at him, he had still felt the weight of curiosity and censure in every stare—and he could only think it would get worse.

He wandered instead, keeping to the lower levels of the city and cursing himself for his cowardice. His kin and forefathers would be ashamed at him for showing fear of elves—but then, they would be even more ashamed at the reason for it.

He wondered, walking along the third level wall in the just-falling dusk, which part would more horrify them: that he had accidentally married an elf, or that he had not kept his troth, unwittingly given though it had been.

 _But I cannot,_ he argued to the specters in his head. _You know I_ —

“Good evening, Lockbearer.”

The voice was deep and musical and so surprising that Gimli jumped and banged an elbow against the wall. Biting back a curse, he turned and bowed low.

“Good evening, my Lady.”

It did not feel as he had expected, seeing her again. His memories of her were all rapturous, exultant. He had longed, had he not, to stand before her once more, to gaze again upon her, to hear his name in her voice? And yet, though her beauty was unchanged, he did not hunger to gaze upon it. Instead he only felt mildly ill—sick with confusion and guilt and the dread of the condemnation he would see when he looked into her eyes.

“It took me some time to track you down.” The rich note of laughter in the Lady’s voice, if possible, made Gimli feel even worse: small and plain in the face of her shining perfection. “Is it an unshared talent of dwarfkind, to conceal oneself in a city of stone? Or is your stealth newfound, a result of so long beside an elvish companion?”

He closed his eyes in agony at those words; though he knew she had the power to discern it merely from a look at Legolas-- indeed, that she likely already had-- he somehow felt as though he could shield herself from her gaze if he merely did not look up. “I know not,” was all he said, in a croak.

She sighed. “I am sorry if my presence brings you distress,” she said. “I would not have it so, but it is of your elvish companion that I would speak, and he has proven even more effective at concealment than you.”

Gimli’s shoulders tensed, then slumped. “Why would you seek us out, Lady?” he said in a whisper. “Sharp are the eyes of the elves, and yours keener than most. Surely you know already the answers you seek.”

She laughed again, gently this time. “You greatly overestimate the power of my perception, Lockbearer,” she said. “Particularly now, with the loss of an aid I relied on much more than I ought.” Before he could think to question, she continued. “It is plain to my eyes that Legolas is wed, and my heart tells me that you are his husband-- but it is just as plain to see that something has gone amiss between you. Will you not open your heart to me? For I would help you to amend it, if I may.”

Gimli gazed on her with anguish. “My lady, I can hardly say. Such matters are not fit for--” he hesitated; he hardly dared insult her by calling her delicate, or by implying that she did not know the ways of wedding. “Mixed company,” he said, hoping she would read him aright.

“You mean gentlemen and ladies.” Her eyes danced. “Rather than elves and dwarves.”

Gimli might have groaned. He could not bear it if he offended both Legolas _and_ the Lady Galadriel with his uncouth bumbling!

“I do,” he muttered, hardly able to keep his countenance in the face of her amusement.

“Well, if it comforts you to hear, I can assure you that I am not ignorant in the matters you would discuss.” She laughed again, lightly, and then the amusement faded from her voice. “But from what you are reluctant to say, I can surmise that you are indeed wed to Legolas.” Her sharp eyes flicked down even as his shoulders sagged, and she nodded thoughtfully. “But perhaps… dwarves do not marry in the same way as elves.”

Gimli bowed his head. “Nay, my lady, we do-- but we do not share in all customs. I am afraid I did not realize elves… do not…” he flushed. “That is to say, dwarves…” he shook his head in frustration. “My lady, dwarves are more like men in these matters, before we wed. And yet, we too have One whom we prize above all others-- if that One may be found.”

“I see.” She said nothing else for a time, but he was unable to relax under her gaze. Her powers might be diminished, as she assured him, but he still felt as though she were taking him apart with nothing but her stare, laying bare all the shameful secrets he would have rather hidden. But at last she nodded, her face sad. “I may not know all of what has gone wrong between you, but I can see you are suffering.” She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry for your pain, son of Glóin.”

“I am not,” he said gruffly. “I suffer instead for Legolas, my lady, who I have grievously injured in my folly. I am ashamed for the damage I have done to our accord, the first friendship between dwarf and elf since Celebrimbor and Narvi walked the land.”

“And since you will not grieve for yourself, I grieve for you.” She removed her hand from his shoulder; he noticed it only dully through the fresh wave of guilt-- he did not deserve her sympathy! “Such a burden you take upon yourself, Lockbearer, but I think if you were truly at fault, you would not feel as you do. And as much good as this union might have wrought between our peoples, you are not to blame for following the urgings of your heart. Indeed, no elf would ever demand that you hold to a marriage that was not made in your heart. If Legolas is not this One you say you seek, even he surely cannot begrudge you for it-- cannot expect love where none is felt.”

“It is not that I do not…” Gimli clenched his fists, helpless. “I care for Legolas; I would see him saved before I looked to my own life. But….” he colored and fell silent.

Galadriel tilted her head. “Then… you believe you have met your One?” She stood very still, and her clear gaze pierced him to the heart.

Gimli scowled at his toes and spoke no word, abashed by her perception.

“My champion,” she said very gently. “If you would not waste your heart as you feel Legolas has wasted his… I would ask you to question your mind upon this matter, and discover whether your choice is true. Think on the message I sent to you before the war ended.”

Gimli flushed so red he felt as if he had been cast into the heart of a furnace. To long for her in exalted silence was one thing, but to be caught at it and rebuffed thus--!

Galadriel smiled on him as he scuffed his foot and grumbled beneath his breath, her eyes kind. “But do not think too long,” she said softly. “For I fear you may regret it if you do.”


	14. Chapter 14

Legolas stared down at the quill hovering indecisively over his parchment, as useless as his own thoughts. The idea of writing letters had been a good one until he had been forced to begin, to try ordering the sorrow in his heart and the sea-song in his ears into words that he would no longer be here to speak. His hand seemed to cramp with the effort, though he had not yet written a single word.

He had thought to try writing his father first, and yet he found himself entirely unequal to the task. How could he say all that he wished in only a letter? And yet, how could he bear to delay long enough to see his father in person-- or, even worse, leave with no word at all in farewell?

A drop of ink fell from the quill, and then another-- splattering the parchment in random patterns that seemed more apt for his purpose than Legolas’s own words. He made a tiny noise of frustration and grief, and resisted the urge to tear the sheet in half.

A soft sound from the doorway roused him from his brooding, and he lifted his head to find Frodo standing there, hesitant, his wounded hand resting on the doorframe.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Frodo said softly. There was something about him that put Legolas in mind of a hare that had been startled in the wood and prepared to bolt. “I was looking for Gimli.”

Legolas felt his smile freeze, and saw Frodo’s sharp eyes note it; the halfling took a small step into the room.

“I did not intend to bring that look to your face,” he said softly. “And yet now that I have done it, it seems to me that you need someone to speak with. I will not carry tales.”

Frodo’s sober gaze held no untruth. Legolas felt himself sag and sigh. “I write to my father,” he said. “For I do not intend to return to the Greenwood now that Sauron is defeated. I have heard the gulls, and I will sail west.”

Frodo padded forward in silence and Legolas arose, moving to the settle where they might sit together without the table inconveniently between them-- it was so high Frodo would have to rest his chin on it rather than his elbows.

“I have heard of this,” Frodo said softly. “You will go to the land of the Valar.”

Legolas nodded. “I do not know how to tell my father. He has said he will remain in Middle Earth after the elves fade and are forgotten. I do not think he will be pleased by my choice-- and it grieves me to think I will not see him again until the Second Singing, if he holds to his word. And--” He hesitated to admit it, but Frodo had caught him. “I did not know how to say my farewells to you and all of our companions. I had hoped that with some time, I might order my thoughts, but I find that the task threatens to defeat me.”

“I am pleased you have told me, though saddened at your news. I think I would not be the only one-- many of us will regret your going,” Frodo said softly. “Gimli not the least, I think. But it is plain the two of you have quarreled.” His eyes-- far too wise and sad-- held Legolas’s gaze. He ran the fingers of his whole hand over the injured one, massaging the base of the missing finger, a nervous habit Legolas had marked soon after his rising. Legolas wondered if Samwise knew where Frodo was, or if he was seeking him.

“We did not fight, but we have disagreed,” he admitted. “So seriously I think there will be no reclaiming the friendship that grew between us in Lothlórien. Perhaps it will always be so for elves and dwarves.” He tried to smile. “Too different to reconcile through all the long ages, until the ending of the world... and perhaps beyond.”

“Say not so,” Frodo entreated, pain on his thin face-- still far too thin for a halfling, even after weeks of good food and ale at the king’s table. “Perhaps some hurts are indeed too terrible to heal, but such a choice is not to be made lightly, if at all.”

“No,” Legolas agreed, feeling a sudden pang of guilt-- what right had he to burden Frodo with his troubles, indeed to be so concerned with them himself, after what the hobbit had endured? He sensed now that Frodo spoke of more than merely Legolas’s hurts, and he knew that he ought to assure him that they would heal-- but how could he, when he planned as soon as he might to take refuge from his own? “And I do not make the choice lightly, but why should I not make it? I am an elf; I hear the call to my people’s home. Thus I will sail.”

“I suppose you are right,” said Frodo, his voice wistful, and his wounded hand drifted up seemingly without his knowledge, towards his neck. It was a gesture Legolas had seen of old, and he restrained a shudder, reminding himself that the Ring was gone never to return, though the memory clearly pained Frodo yet. “It is hardly a choice for you, is it not? When you are suffering and pained, there is a place for you to take refuge.”

His fingers closed around something upon his breast, and Legolas nearly flinched, before he noticed a very faint light radiating from between Frodo’s fingers-- a light like starlight. Of course-- his gift from the Lady.

The Lady.

She had given the gift of starlight to two of their company, then, and Legolas fought against the image in his mind of Gimli very carefully tucking away the strands of her hair, fingering them in his breast pocket. Gimli would never treasure anything of Legolas as much as he did those strands of hair.

The Lady would sail, too, Legolas realized, and he remembered Gimli’s words of weeks before-- that if the elves all sailed, it would be a duller world for those doomed to stay. A duller world indeed, without her. Gimli would be grieved when she departed-- but at least he would have something to remember her by.

Legolas himself would soon be forgotten-- as soon as Gimli found another who stirred his lust.

He shook himself back to the present-- to Frodo. “Would that it were so easy for you,” he said softly, meaning it. He at least might console himself with the promise of Valinor, and of healing. “All our praise cannot restore what you have lost, and I am sorry for it.”

Frodo turned his gaze aside, his hand still at his breast. “All the more reason not to throw away what is--” he swallowed heavily-- “truly precious.”

Legolas closed his eyes. “It was not I who did the discarding,” he said, very low.

Frodo drew a sharp breath, and after a moment the warmth of his intact hand settled on Legolas’s. “I regret to hear it.” He hesitated. “I am here if you wish to speak further of this, now or later. I confess it takes me out of myself to hear of another’s troubles that are not my own, but I hear Sam calling.” He tilted his head to listen, and sure enough, Legolas could hear Samwise approaching.

“I thank you,” Legolas said, bowing low just as Sam came rushing around the corner.

“Oh, there you are. I missed you. You shouldn’t have let me go napping,” he reproached Frodo, approaching him and setting hands on his shoulders so tenderly it made Legolas’s throat thicken with tears just to watch. Sam drew a breath, visibly composing himself and putting away the dregs of panic. “We should go down to the pantry for a bite of lunch. Will you be going with us, Legolas?”

Legolas mustered a smile for Sam. “I have no need for food, so I will stay here.” He arose and went to his writing desk. “I must finish my letter.”

When they had gone he crumpled the parchment with a sigh and sat back, staring unhappily at the ink stain on his right forefinger. He still knew not what to say-- but he would have to believe that the clumsiest of words would be better than nothing at all.

Sighing, he picked up his quill and began anew.


	15. Chapter 15

Gimli let his head fall back against the stone wall of his bedroom, the one place he had thought he might not be disturbed. The dull clang of the helm did not cause him any pain, but the jolt traveled down his body, rocking him where he sat.

_If you would not waste your heart as you feel Legolas has wasted his…_

He pondered doing it again, just to drive home the gentle rebuke of her words with the thumping he deserved-- or to perhaps distract himself from the shame of it. The Lady felt that his heart was wasted on her, his devotion meaningless, his love poorly spent. And it was no less than he deserved for his shamelessness, his brazen declarations of fealty. He had never expected-- indeed, had never wanted-- his love to be returned, but to have it thus turned aside, to have her tell him _not_ to love her--

And yet that too was no more than he deserved. It came to him exactly as it ought, fate returning to him the shame and pain that he had given to Legolas with his own rejection of his friend’s love, with the humiliation Legolas now faced before all the elves who had come.

But-- but no, it was not quite the same.

It was not the Lady’s rejection that hurt him, Gimli realized. He had, after all, never hoped for her acceptance-- indeed, his love for her was of the kind he had never hoped to be returned. He did not wish to live beside her, to hear her call him husband or to sire her children-- indeed, the very thought made him blush and squirm in strange reluctance. It was the fact that she had told him his devotion was misplaced and wasted, that he ought not love her, as though he could choose that! And he, at least, had never said such to Legolas-- he had never treated Legolas’s love as foolish or said he wished it were not so, even if he desired more than anything for Legolas’s feelings to change, so they might recover the old ease between them…

He frowned when the last thought struck him, his stomach writhing with the same sort of unease he had felt at the thought of being wed to the Lady. Did he truly wish that Legolas’s feelings might disappear?

What a foolish question! Of course he did-- then they might recover the old friendship between them without the need for sorrow and guilt; then the ease would return to their interactions once more and Gimli need not fear at night that Legolas would fall or jump from his balcony; they might share food and drink and jest as they had of old-- and yet, it was strange, for even as he grasped at it, Gimli found that he could almost no longer remember what their friendship had felt like before.

A tap at his door startled him from his brooding, and he lifted his head to find Dwalin standing in his door, looking belligerent and uncomfortable-- for though this was a citadel of stone, it was made for men, and the doorknob was too high for him.

“Gimli,” Dwalin said, with a slight bow that made Gimli’s eyes pop open wide; Dwalin had helped instruct him in combat techniques when he was a dwarfling, and he was not accustomed to deference from such an old, grizzled warrior. “I had meant to come to you before this, but there has been much to do since our arrival.”

Gimli shifted guiltily. He too was to blame; he had not felt as comfortable around his fellow dwarves as he might of old, after such trials experienced with men, hobbits, and elves. “Dwalin,” he said, rising to return the bow. “I did not look to see you here, but I am pleased you have come to see me.” He glanced around, hoping the pitcher of wine on the table had been refilled. “Will you sit?”

Dwalin did, and Gimli was glad to see he had brought a heavy pottery bottle-- some of Erebor’s finest spirits; he knew the maker’s mark very well. He filled Dwalin’s glass with wine, saving the strong stuff for later, and sat down politely to wait for his elder to speak.

“You have made the dwarves of the north proud. It is told far and wide how you bested an elf in kills at the Battle of Helm’s Deep.” Dwalin took a deep swig of the wine. “And how your aid brought the bearers of the Ring far within the wilderness.” He gazed down at the table. “Yet it is also told that you saw the tomb of Balin in Moria. All grieve for him, and for his followers.”

“Yes,” said Gimli softly. He looked down at the table, then back up. “I am sorry. Would that I could have brought you happier news of your brother.” He sat silent for another moment, unsure what to say, until the memory struck him, and he sprang to his feet. “Wait. Though we suffered heavy blows as we traveled through the mines, not least the knowledge of Balin’s fate, I did not emerge empty-handed.” He went to his bag and rummaged through until he reached the very bottom. The greatest treasure he had carried with him, equal to Galadriel’s gift in worth, if not in joy, lay there, carefully wrapped. The Book of Mazarbul-- Ori’s chronicle of the expedition’s failure. Gimli withdrew it now and passed it to Dwalin. “It ought to go to you-- and to my father, and Dori and Nori, and all others whose kin fell to Durin’s Bane.”

“Aye.” Dwalin touched the book’s cover reverently, but did not open it; Gimli was left to wonder (as he had for long years) whether the old dwarf knew how to read. He could not tell; perhaps Dwalin forbore to open it out of respect for Stonehelm, whose right to read it first was based in his kingship. “Grief is an old companion, when you live as long as I have done.” Dwalin pushed the book back across the table toward Gimli and lifted his glass again, draining it. “None of us who traveled with Thorin Oakenshield are strangers to grief.”

Gimli sat very still, hardly daring to speak. Some who had traveled with that company-- such as his father-- never hesitated to spin long and likely only half-true tales of their adventures, even long after Gimli himself had grown up and ceased to beg for more. But others were hard-pressed to speak even a word of it, and Dwalin had always been more silent than most, glaring down those who dared to ask with arms crossed over his chest and axe prominently displayed in his belt. Yet it seemed now as though Dwalin would speak, and Gimli could only listen, wondering what his old mentor thought it fit to tell him, here and now.

Dwalin tipped his chair back to rest against the wall, looking oddly childlike in a chair built for men. “You have acquitted yourself well, son of my friend-- you were always like a nephew to me, for I will have no sons of my own. I knew that when I was yet young.” Dwalin stared up at the ceiling, pain playing over his face, making him look tired and old. “I might have adopted one, eventually, if not for--” he shook his head and reached for the pitcher; Gimli slid it across the table to him and watched him empty it, setting aside the glass.

Gimli sat quietly in respect for his elder’s grief, guessing at Dwalin’s thought: if he had not lost the other half of himself, his One. His father had often made reference to it, and though Gimli was not certain who that One might have been, he thought he could guess. He frowned, feeling great sympathy for Dwalin-- who had lived as Gimli must do, without love.

Dwalin wiped his mouth with one arm. “Speak your thought,” he said simply, unguarded. “For I see you are troubled in your mind. What has come to weigh upon you so, surrounded by men-- and elves!-- as you are? It would drive any dwarf to brooding, to travel thus.”

Gimli sighed. It was clear to all, then-- even those he had taken such pains to avoid. “Men and elves, yes,” he said, and had he been in any other company he might have expanded upon the theme of elves-- of all their infuriating quirks, of the endless singing and the insistence on horses and their ability to go for so long without sleep and thus keep others awake; of their capricious manners and their tendency to ricochet between warm and freezing in only seconds. Two things stopped him: first, that he knew his present company might not read the affection beneath the words; and second, that Legolas was now all coldness and no cheer, and Gimli himself entirely to blame.

“You say you knew you would have no children,” he said abruptly, changing the subject with all the grace of a poorly-aimed hammer blow. “That you are no stranger to grief. Tell me of it, if you would. Of him.”

Dwalin passed a hand over his face; its calluses rasped on his bald pate and over his beard, fingers tangling in the coarse hair. “He was my shieldbrother, of course-- the dearest one I ever had. I knew I would follow him anywhere before I ever knew why.” His eyes grew dreamy and unfocused in a way Gimli had never seen them, his thoughts clearly drifting. “From the beginning we were inseparable; we trained, ate, and drank together, and later we marched together to the Battle of Azanulbizar. I thought him a fool, but he insisted on going, for his father and grandfather were in the vanguard and he would not be left at home when he might earn glory and have a share in the retaking of Khazad-Dum. And I would not have him fight there without me to guard his back. So we both went-- and very nearly died there, as so many of our people have died in misguided attempts to retake that accursed place.” He reached then for his jug and set it on the table; Gimli found a knife and cut the wax seal that protected the cork.

“I followed him again, of course, to Erebor. That you know without being told.” Dwalin sighed. “He was as close to me as a brother, and though we squabbled, I would not be apart from him-- and I would have laid down my life for his, if only I could have been there at the right moment.” He pushed his glass forward and Gimli filled it, then his own; together they sipped. The spirits were fiery and rough, still young; Gimli coughed a bit and wiped his mouth as Dwalin had, upon his sleeve.

“Thorin,” he said, once he had found his voice again. The name was difficult to speak, suddenly; Gimli thought that not even in his mind had he ever allowed it to take shape, though he had long known it. “You loved Thorin Oakenshield.”

Dwalin sighed deeply. “And he me, though few remain now to tell of it.” He took another long swig from his cup. “I thought it better so, for a time-- that I ought to keep his memory to myself, so no other might have the chance to sully it. Now I wonder if I might not have been wrong-- for it seems to me that love is meant to be shared. It feels less real now than it ever did, now that few remember it. It is lonely to love alone-- I did not realize it until I had no other choice.”

Gimli drank again himself, and thought about those words. When he had put his mug down once more, he tried to find the words to form his thought. “I had thought,” he said carefully, “it was enough to love alone. Perhaps not fully satisfying to be without one’s beloved-- but is it not the truest kind of love that sustains itself even when no other is there to bolster it?”

Dwalin stared at him in surprise for a long moment, then threw his head back and laughed long and hard. “Gimli, my boy, someone has filled your head with foolish fancies, and you are yet so young you have not learned better of them.” He drank again, with better appetite. “Do you pine, then, after some unattainable dwarrowdam that you have met on your travels?”

“I--” Gimli blushed, and scolded himself for it. Here he sat, as well-traveled and accomplished as any dwarf, and more so than most-- blushing like a beardless youth with spots on his face, and indeed being addressed as one! “No,” was all he could say in the end, sounding and feeling sullen and small. It was not a lie, after all.

Dwalin snorted. “Say what you like. I know the look of it-- I have seen it often enough. It happened even on our journey: Kili, Thorin's nephew, became enamored at a glance of someone he hardly knew and could not have. Even he knew it-- he said that it was because she seemed far away and untouchable, beautiful as mithril but as cold. Some of our companions even blamed the maid for the distraction that led to his death…”

They both fell silent unprompted, in respect and memory. Gimli reeled-- he had been close with Kili, and this was a story he had never been told, even by his father. Perhaps Dwalin’s words gave the reason: if this adoration had meant so little, it would not have been shared with his family and friends. But-- the thought that Dwalin might use this story to dismiss Gimli’s own heart--

“It would not have grown to more than it was,” said Dwalin at last. “Such a love, built on so little, cannot be sustained. He would have known it eventually, had he lived long enough to meet his One.” He looked straight at Gimli. “I thank Mahal that you will have the chance he did not.”

Gimli mustered defiance, though in truth he felt his will wavering. “Then you say with such certainty that I have not met my One?” he said. “Though you know nothing of my heart or my situation?”

“I know enough. This infatuation will pass soon enough-- when you do meet your One.” Dwalin nodded wisely and lifted his mug to his lips. “Then you will see that yours is merely a passing fancy, a dream of perfection that love cannot touch. For when you meet your One, you will see that any other pales by comparison.” Dwalin took a deep swig of his liquor.

“Your One is not a barren perfection to be displayed in a case of glass, where hands cannot touch. Your One is argument and laughter, love and anger, tears and joy. You will yearn to spend every day together, to fight side by side and guard one another’s backs. You will not flinch from the ugliness within one another, and you will come to know your One’s flaws as deeply as you know your own-- and love in spite of them.” Dwalin grunted with remembered exasperation, eyes faraway, as if he saw Thorin before him even now.

“You will be rivals at war and in craftsmanship, but you will find joy in one another’s skills and triumphs-- your One will be closer than a brother or sister, a fire in the blood, the only one whom you could ever envision yourself forgiving no matter what, the only one who is beautiful to you no matter how worn: spattered with blood in battle, smeared with soot, half his hair and beard burnt away--” Dwalin’s lips tightened. “A friend honest and true, who would stand beside you always, _bâheluh_ and _âzyungel_ alike, never more one than the other.”

Gimli’s throat tightened painfully, as though metal wire had cinched it closed. Perhaps it was the sudden distance he felt between himself and Dwalin in that moment: this older, wiser warrior who had known love with such certainty he felt no need for doubt; perhaps it was the wistfulness in Dwalin’s voice, the emotion he had never shown to Gimli before. Or perhaps it was his own doubt, the sudden feeling that he could not have known this love that Dwalin remembered so well, for all that he had been so certain only hours ago that he knew his whole heart. “And how do you know?” he said in a voice so tiny that he could hardly hear himself. “How do you know when you have met the love that makes all others as nothing in comparison?”

“You will know,” said Dwalin simply. “You will know because your One will never leave your mind-- all your thoughts and feelings, all your dreams and fears, will be about him above all others. And if nothing else . . .” He emptied his cup and set it on the table with a clinking sound that spoke of finality. “You will know him when you lose him-- for you will never be quite whole again.”

Gimli cast down his gaze and refilled their glasses once more, this time pouring as much for himself as he did for Dwalin. “I thank you for your wisdom,” he said. “But it is melancholy drinking and talking of those who are no longer with us. Tell me instead of what has happened in Erebor while I was away-- any news concerning my family and friends,” he suggested, for he was filled with doubt, and he could not bear to pursue this line of thinking any further.

And so they drank together until the bottle was empty and both were reeling, and Gimli laid Dwalin down to rest upon his own bed. But as soon as the room was quiet once more, all the thoughts he had been trying to avoid rushed back in: Dwalin’s descriptions of his love for his One, who had been his companion before all else; his own strange discomfort in the presence of Galadriel, despite the awe she yet inspired him-- and of course, her words to him.

_Remember the message I sent to you,_ she had said, and he remembered it now, with perfect clarity. _Lockbearer, wherever thou goest, my thought goes with thee._ For so long he had only cared for those words-- the sign of her favor, of her thought for him. And yet now he remembered the second half of the message, one he had shrugged off as a warning about Fangorn. _Have a care to lay thine axe to the right tree._

They all doubted him, then-- doubted the feelings that he had thought such a certainty in his heart, and now in the face of their skepticism, he found he was beginning to doubt himself as well.

Dwalin’s snores began to resound through the room, and Gimli went out upon the balcony, thinking wistfully of the elf-- as much as he feared what he might find, still he wished to see Legolas. He wished to examine what feelings seeing the elf produced in him, and to be assured that his friend was well despite his own fey mood.

But the elf never came out, so Gimli was left to smoke his pipe in silence and brood alone.

*****

Legolas finished his letters late in the evening, with many crumpled false starts and a much-depleted bottle of ink for his efforts. He found he was still deeply unsatisfied with the notes he had written, and their insufficiency to express his love and regret-- but then, the letters were meant as a final farewell. How could they ever be enough?

He managed for the most part to avoid seeing any others on his return to the house where the Fellowship lodged. Mortals were easier to evade than elves, but most of the elves who had come with the lady Arwen were not looking to see him-- and anyway, no one could hide better than a warrior of Mirkwood. To his relief, he was not accosted, and had to exchange no more greetings than the occasional pleasantry with a passerby.

The wedding was tomorrow, and although it pained him, the thought also brought swells of relief that promised to break upon the shore of his troubled soul and wash his troubles back out to sea. Only one day yet he had to suffer, only one weight holding his feet to this shore. And then he would leave, would sail _west, west away_ , away from the memories of shattered hopes and faded joys. Only one day yet, and then he would have peace.

And there would be forests in Valinor, too, and perhaps away from this land of grief and trial he might rediscover his love for the green things that gloried in sun and rain. Perhaps he might relearn to be glad himself.

He had reached the door of the house as he mused, and he hesitated with a hand poised over the knob. He could hear voices within-- Gimli and another, unfamiliar voice: deeper, rougher than Gimli’s-- another dwarf, perhaps? One from the Erebor delegation?

Another dwarf, in Gimli’s room. In their shared house. At night.

Legolas remembered Gimli’s words of long ago-- that it was common to share the ways of love with shieldbrothers and close friends. Was that what this was? Another shieldbrother of Gimli’s, perhaps? How much longer would they continue speaking? Or perhaps this was only the prelude to something else--

Fabric and parchment rustled at Legolas’s waist as his wrist brushed against the stowed letters. His hands were shaking.

Legolas stared at the door, unable to move or breathe, until another burst of laughter rang out from Gimli’s room.

He did not stay to listen further. For the second time that day, Legolas fled.


	16. Chapter 16

Weddings were meant to be joyous events.

And joyous indeed this one was, Gimli supposed, for the couple in question; the radiant delight on their faces was not to be mistaken. Even he could feel it, dimly and as though from a great distance: his friend’s happiness was infectious, spreading over all the well-wishers at the wedding and lifting nearly all the faces around them with borrowed joy at their union.

All save Gimli-- and one other.

Legolas stood beside him, closer than he had been in nearly a day and yet seeming farther away than ever, his eyes distant and face perfectly smooth in neither smile nor frown. Although Gimli had been searching for him only this morning, now that they stood together, he could hardly bring himself to look just to the side.

It was just as well, for Legolas showed no interest in meeting his gaze.

Gimli mustered up all the energy he could to be happy for his friend. And he _was_ \-- surely, after their long labors and years of waiting, the wedding couple deserved great happiness, and surely they had found it in one another. Their faces told of nothing less.

And Gimli could not stop Dwalin’s voice echoing in his head. _You will yearn to spend every day together… your One will be closer than a brother or sister…_ Surely this was the joy Aragorn and his bride now found in one another; surely these were the yearnings of one truly in love, and Gimli…

Gimli did not know. He had thought on it long and hard, and still he did not know, and Legolas stood beside him, impossibly far away, and Gimli longed to speak to him even as he did not dare.

The ceremony went by in a blur, the promises and well-wishes barely audible over the buzz of his troubled thoughts, and before he knew it, it was done. His friend-- his leader, his fellow Hunter-- was a king and a husband at last, and he stood with his wife to greet a line of friends and well-wishers, and-- Gimli blinked-- Legolas had vanished from his side.

He looked for the elf in the line of well-wishers waiting to congratulate the newly married couple, but if Legolas had been there, he was already gone. He was not at the reception, either, nor did Gimli spy him among the well-wishers who reveled out of doors. The spires and crenellations of the city where his friend loved to perch stood stark and empty against a bright cloudless sky. Legolas was not among the elves of Rivendell or of Lórien, nor was he with the halflings. He was not to be found in their lodging, and by the time Gimli left them he was running, some presentiment of disaster moving his heart.

Gandalf sat without in the tiny courtyard, perched on a carved gray bench next to a pot of red flowers, their pungent scent masked by the sweet smoke of his pipe. At another time Gimli would have joined the wizard, drawing out his own pipe; now he skidded to a halt before the bench, the metal cladding on his boots striking sparks from the marble slabs underfoot.

“Where is the elf?” Gimli gasped. Gandalf would know. Without doubt, that was why he was waiting here for Gimli.

Gandalf took a draw on his pipe, surveying it to ensure it was well alight, and released a stream of smoke slowly between his lips, watching it rise. “He has departed the city. He means to sail west, for no joy remains to him in Middle-Earth.” Gandalf studied him coolly, bushy brows drawn low in a scowl.

Gimli sagged, a groan of pure anguish ripped from his throat.

“He left this for you,” Gandalf reached into his robes and withdrew several bits of parchment, each folded neatly into itself and tied, absurdly elegant, with a wisp of grass. He selected one and extended it for Gimli to take.

Gimli tore into his letter with shaking fingers, forgetting the wizard in his haste. Legolas had written only a few words within:

_“Gimli,_

_I regret I cannot keep my promise to take you through Fangorn, or to accompany you through Aglarond, but it was not meant to be. I go now to follow the gulls. May you prosper and achieve all you desire._

_Farewell, husband. The greatest joy I ever knew was in your arms.”_

The ink blurred and Gimli realized that his tears had fallen upon the paper, which crumpled in his fist. All that Dwalin had said came back to him, and the sudden surety of his folly crushed his soul in claws of iron.

“I have made a terrible mistake.” He set his jaw and lifted his head to face the wizard. “Which way has he gone? I will stop him.”

“Will you?” Gandalf pursed his lips with disapproval. “He goes to find the Straight Road. None should lightly venture to interfere.” He poked his pipestem toward Gimli. “You have done him harm enough as it is. Do you know, the two of you might have mended the rift between dwarves and elves during this age of the world?” He sat back, glowering at Gimli. “Let him go, if you do not love him as he loves you.”

“I will love him however he wishes,” said Gimli, hardly believing the words that came out of his mouth, and yet hardly aware of them through the frantic despair that clouded his senses, “if he will only stay.”

Gandalf raised his eyebrows, only appearing more severe. “And you are certain that is enough to warrant your pursuit?” He gestured again, smoke curling into the air from his seemingly-forgotten pipe. “You have spent so long assured that love cannot be forced, and now you think a promise of future sentiment might be enough to call an elf back from the Straight Road?”

Gimli shook his head; he swallowed hard but the tears in his throat would not be suppressed. “I know no longer what love is,” he croaked, his voice wavering and cracking like a fault that could no longer hold up solid stone. “My certainties have fallen from me, and all I have is the knowledge that I cannot let him go. Is that enough?” He fumbled at his breast pocket and withdrew a tiny leather pouch, which he had carried so faithfully beside him for months and which now felt like a rope he had tied around his own neck. “I would give up anything, even the tress of Galadriel, to keep him by my side for all the years of my life. Is that enough?”

Gandalf reached out and caught his wrist, stilling its motion, and only then did Gimli realize that he had been waving the pouch in Gandalf’s face. The wizard’s fingers were slender but harder than Gimli had expected, and he thought the hold might leave bruises even on his tough skin. But Gandalf’s face had softened at last-- with sympathy, Gimli dared to hope.

“Keep this,” he said, releasing Gimli’s hand and watching with sharp eyes as Gimli tucked the pouch away once more. “It may well be that you will need something to hold by you, if you should not succeed.” He sighed and tapped out his pipe. “Legolas has sailed south down the Anduin. He plans to take ship from the elf-havens to the north of Belfalas and make his way west across the sea.”

Gimli gulped. He remembered with no fondness the Fellowship’s own journey down the Anduin, and he had no desire to repeat such a journey, at least not alone. But… but it was not true that he had no fond memories, for on their journey he had had Legolas by his side, showing him how to shift his weight and alter the stroke of his oars to guide their little craft down the river; singing merry songs to pass the time and ease the despair that had fallen so heavy upon them; sharing his rations at night and jests during the day--

He knew not if that was the love Dwalin had described, but he knew that he could not bear to be without it. That he would give up anything, suffer anything, to keep Legolas by his side for one minute more-- or, better, for all the rest of his life.

He squared his shoulders, drew a hand across his damp cheeks, and looked up at Gandalf.

“Tell me where I can find a boat.”

*****

The wind was thick in his sails and crisp on his skin, whipping clothing and hair into a tangle. Legolas turned his face into it, feeling it tear at the corners of his eyes and sting his cheeks raw, listening to the flapping fabric of his clothes and the rush in his ears-- none of which was louder than the cries of gulls overhead or the elusive melody in his heart, growing louder with every second.

There was no smell of salt yet on the breeze, no sound of the waves-- but all that would come soon enough. Legolas could wait a few hours more, now that he knew he was on his way, now that release and relief were visible in the distance. He had not even reached the sea yet and already he could feel the pain falling away from him-- the hints of regret at leaving Aragorn’s wedding so abruptly and so early, the pity for Frodo, who had not the salvation Legolas awaited.

Even when those tormenting memories of Gimli surfaced-- the joy that had been so brutally ripped away from him; the breath-stealing, stomach-dropping shock of seeing him with Galadriel and hearing him with his dwarf friend the night before-- he need not listen to them. He need only turn his face back into the wind and stop his ears and his heart with the lure of the sea, and know that it would not be long before his sorrows were washed away from him for good.


	17. Chapter 17

Gimli the Dwarf barreled through the streets of Minas Tirith, jostling aside those few unfortunates who were not alert enough to overhear the thunder of his iron-shod feet on the cobblestones. He rounded a corner, skidding, and put his head down, charging past startled hostlers and stable-boys and crashing to a halt against the stone pillar beside Arod’s stall.

All around horses whinnied in fright, some of them kicking at the doors of their stalls and thumping against the partitions. Arod whickered, startled, and raised his head.

Legolas had not taken the horse, then-- Gimli was relieved, for he trusted no other to bear him. Arod tossed his head, but he knew Gimli’s scent, and he did not show whites in his eyes or back his ears, so Gimli dared to fling the door open and slip inside, taking the horse by his bridle.

“We must ride,” he said gruffly. “Haste is needed; I cannot waste a moment.”

Arod strode eagerly to the mounting block and two men helped saddle him there. Gimli bestrode his back awkwardly; he was unused to riding alone (and did not like to think of the last time he had done it), and he clung to the saddle-horn with one hand and the horse’s mane with the other.

“To the river,” he said, and urged Arod forward with both heels.

The jerk of acceleration nearly left him upon his back in the middle of the stable straw, but he clung to his perch by sheer force of stubbornness and by the time they reached the Great Gate, he was leaning into the turns to help Arod accelerate. They flashed through the half-open portal and onto the trampled earth of the Gateway; Gimli tugged at Arod’s rein to guide him, but there was no need. He was already turning aside, arrowing away from the roads and across the plains where new grass had only just begun to grow tall in the wake of the terrible battle. The Rammas Echor proved no obstacle; they aimed for one of the breaches in the wall where orcs had blasted the stones away and there was no need to delay for passage through the nearest Causeway Fort.

The silver ribbon of the river drew nearer steadily, and Gimli was dismayed to see that none of the ships there bore sails upon their masts. He had faint hopes of finding Legolas delayed there, seeking passage, but the portmaster shook his wizened head when Gimli reined the horse in to inquire.

“No, the king’s friend set sail perhaps two hours past, aboard a swift caravel bound for Belfalas,” he said, and Gimli groaned in dismay.

“I too need swift passage south,” he said.

“There is a ship leaving on the morrow,” the man said, but Gimli would not hear of it. Instead, another face in the crowd had caught his eye.

“My Lord Imrahil!” Gimli cried, and nudged the horse forward; Imrahil turned. “I should have thought to find you at the wedding.”

“I came here straight away; my gift for the king and his bride was left behind in the rush of departure,” Imrahil said. “But why are you here, and in such a fluster?”

Gimli could picture himself-- wild-eyed, with no pack or provisions, his hair frayed from the gallop across the Pelennor. But he had no time to apologize for lack of courtesy.

“I must away to Belfalas at once, aboard the fastest ship I may charter,” he said. “It is an errand of life or death.”

“Life or death?” Imrahil’s brows rose, seemingly a sign of great surprise on that typically-calm face. “And you seek a ship? None will be leaving today; those who have come for the wedding will likely be too weary to depart until tomorrow.”

“That I have been told, to my regret,” said Gimli, “but I mean to find passage however I may, for my errand will not wait, and abandoning it is no option.” A plan was beginning to take shape, one that demanded as much caution as he was able to muster in the face of his urgency. He would draw Imrahil’s interest carefully, if he might, but he would not play with words for long.

“Indeed,” said the prince of Dol Amroth, examining him carefully with piercing grey eyes that seemed to be reading every inch of him. It was not quite the same, but the intensity of his gaze reminded Gimli of Legolas, and his heart seized within him, a spasm that nearly caused him physical pain. Legolas was slipping farther and farther away with every moment he delayed here, and he could not bear it-- but Imrahil spoke again before Gimli could burst with impatience. “It may be that I can assist, but I would know the nature of this errand before I make any promises.”

Gimli swallowed. He knew he had no use for reluctance or shame-- not in such a desperate moment-- and yet old habits froze his tongue for a moment, urging him to silence. “It concerns the elf, Legolas,” he said at last. “He means to set sail west and leave Middle-earth forever, for he believes he has nothing to hold him here, but it may be--” His mouth had gone quite dry; he licked his lips. “It may be that something yet remains to him, though he does not know it. I would tell him of it, before he-- before he leaves forever.”

“You would,” said Imrahil slowly, after a pause nearly long enough to set Gimli to weeping and begging in frustration. “And you say this is an errand of life or death?”

Gimli nearly snapped back at him, all courtesy driven from his mind-- but he knew he had not the right. This errand was for him as much as for Legolas; he could not deny that he might merely cause his friend more pain, but-- “He deserves to know,” he said finally. “He deserves to see all the cards before he makes a bet he might regret.”

Imrahil pursed his lips. “Indeed, I may be able to aid you in this,” he said. “You are a hero, and a friend of my king-- and I owe a debt to Legolas. My memories of the battle at the Morannon are not perfectly clear, but I do recall a single warrior making a valiant and foolhardy charge at enemy lines-- causing a distraction at a moment when my soldiers were particularly beset. I was never entirely certain, but I thought I recognized your friend as that warrior.”

“Aye,” croaked Gimli, remembering all too well, and tensing his stomach against the sucking, sinking pool of shame. “Aye, that was he.”

Imrahil nodded. Then he turned from Gimli and called to the two men who had accompanied him to his ship, though they stood some polite distance back. Now they came to stand beside him, and he spoke to them.

“Esta, Attëa,” he said, “I have a task for you. This is Gimli, son of Glóin-- a friend and companion of our King. He wishes to travel south down the Anduin and then west to Edhellond, where the elves leave to sail west across the sea. I would have you take one of our ships and accompany him to the elf haven, in the hope that he may carry out his errand.”

One of the men pursed his lips to the side and spat, but it did not trouble Imrahil, who clapped Gimli upon the shoulder. “They will take you aboard their ship. It is speedy as any now here-- but you have no time to waste, if you mean to catch the elf.”

“I thank you,” Gimli said, earnest. “And when I return, I will repay this debt.”

“I wish you well in your enterprise,” Imrahil said. “But as far as I know, none save orcs have ever hindered an elf who meant to sail-- and then only by dispatching him to Mandos all the sooner.”

The sailors bestirred themselves, one crossing the gangplank to the boat. Gimli eyed it with dismay; there would be no way to coax Arod across such a narrow path.

“Here, dwarf,” one sailor said, and Gimli saw that he had gone to man a winch, hooking a wide canvas strap to a chain. “We must position the horse and fasten this strap below his belly. Does he kick?”

“Do not kick,” Gimli implored Arod, who blew a snort of air through his nostrils, reproachful, and let himself be maneuvered into the sling.

Together Gimli and one of the men lifted the horse by means of a cunning lever and pulley system, swinging the winch to raise Arod over the gap, then lowering him to the deck, where the second sailor awaited to free him again.

Then Gimli hastened aboard, refusing to look down as he slid his heavy feet along the narrow gangplank until he could jump down, relieved to be aboard at last.

He went to the horse, patting his nose and offering a heel of bread he had saved from his breakfast. Arod lipped it up and nudged him with his velvety nose, nearly knocking Gimli over.

“Well? Cut the rope, don’t just stand there,” Gimli blustered. “We must catch a paravel that sailed two hours ere I arrived here.”

“Cast off,” one sailor called to the dockmaster, who lifted a loop of rope from a piling. The sailors manned a set of clumsy oars, backing the boat from its place at the dockside so slowly that Gimli might have bellowed aloud for the sheer frustration of it. At this rate, he might have ridden a snail and arrived the sooner for it!

But he forced himself to remain outwardly calm, fists clenched and chest tense in an effort to force down the scream of vexation that threatened to burst out of him, though he could not prevent himself from twitching as the sailors-- whose names he had already forgotten-- slowly maneuvered the boat out into open water.

And even then, they did not pick up speed. They drifted lazily downriver on the current, for Imrahil’s men had set down their oars and begun fumbling about with beams and ropes that Gimli could make no sense of through the haze of desperation and anticipation and trepidation. He had not been fond of any of his trips on this river, and the rocking of the boat beneath his feet only reminded him of the last time he had been in such a ship-- traveling from Pelargir to Minas Tirith, right after he had broken Legolas’s heart-- and he knew not if the lurching in his stomach was from the motion of the water or the shame and fear that gnawed at his insides.

“How long will it take us to arrive?” he asked when he could no longer stand the waiting, the quiet broken only by the men calling orders to one another that might as well have been in another language, for all the sense they made to Gimli. Every moment they delayed was another moment that Legolas traveled further, increasing his head start, and how could they hope to catch him if they would not hurry up--

“Who can say?” said the sailor who stood with Gimli in the bottom of the boat, gazing up at where the other was perched above, fiddling with a sail. “But the delay is only longer when you distract us from our work.”

Gimli seethed, but did not speak, falling back to stand once more beside Arod, stroking the horse’s nose-- though he knew no longer if it were to calm Arod or himself.

“Worry not, Master Dwarf!” called the other sailor from above, where he had finally attached the sail to the two beams Gimli could make out, and the cloth spread out into the shape Gimli recognized from their journey from Pelargir. The other sailor took the wheel at the stern of the boat and angled them slightly so that the wind caught in the sail-- and then the boat sped up, a rush of wind and lurch of water that both roused and soothed his unease, and now they were moving.

The second sailor jumped down into the bottom of the boat, and clapped a friendly hand to Gimli’s shoulder. “We cannot control the wind or the current, but there are no better sailors than we of Dol Amroth. Whatever business you have with this elf, I am sure we will arrive in time for you to complete it.”

Despite the sailors’ reassurances, the shore crawled past at a dismal rate. Gimli believed he and Legolas and Aragorn had run faster on foot when pursuing Merry and Pippin across Rohan in the wake of Boromir’s death. He went to the front of the boat and leaned into the pointed part, both hands on the rail. He stared ahead, straining as though he had the eyes of an elf and might spot Legolas’s boat somewhere ahead. But there was nothing to be seen but the ripple of the water, and low banks of scrub growing on the marshy ground to the left and right of Anduin’s channel.

He kept trying, though, until the sun sank low and its rays blinded his watering eyes. Then he turned away, cursing-- the sun gave him the excuse he needed to wipe his cheeks and eyes, which were red and swollen.

He went to the horse, seeing that Arod had water; fortunately the saddlebags contained a portion of oats, and he was able to fill his companion’s nosebag before he rolled himself up in a scratchy blanket and tucked himself against the side wall of the boat, out of the wind. He turned his back to the sailors, pretending to sleep.

*****

Legolas watched only vaguely and without interest as the land passed him by-- these shores held nothing to tempt him anymore. In some quiet, regretful place in the back of his mind, he remembered the time when he would have delighted in every new view of land that was revealed, in open plains and rocky shores and in the faint glimpses of mountains in the distance-- and of course in every tree and grove that came into view. In the past, he had always been one to irk his traveling companions by begging to delay just a moment longer so he might look more closely at a tiny flower he had never seen before, or press his ear to an unfamiliar tree in an effort to learn the melody of its song or hear its deep, slow greeting.

Dimly, he remembered that those times had not been so long ago, but he could hardly recall the feeling anymore.

It mattered not, anyway. Soon enough he would be in Valinor, and there would be enough beauty there to drive all the regrets and _not-enough_ of these shores from his heart. He need only wait a little longer.

The one moment of reaction he had to the land that passed him by was when they sailed past Pelargir. He had hardly noticed the sight of the shore, he thought, so occupied had he been with two different kinds of grief-- but it seemed he had marked it more than he thought, for those feelings crashed heavily down upon him at the first sight of the shore. He remembered wandering through this town, filled with wonder and hope-- not carefree, but so certain that his newfound joy would drive all need for care away from him--

His eyes burned with tears, but he did not let them fall. Instead, he forced his head to turn and cast his eyes and mind forward, forward at the river spreading out before him, forward to the horizon he would soon reach-- forward to a land without pain, where his cares and troubles would fall from him and his useless marriage would no longer sit as a festering wound in his heart.

_Soon,_ he reminded himself. _Very soon._


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning, nothing had changed.

“How much farther to Belfalas?”

Gimli thought the sailor who answered was named Esta, but in truth the features of the men were similar enough that he could not be certain of their identities unless the other had just spoken. “We have not yet reached Pelargir. The wind is unfavorable, and last night was calm. We are dependent now on the current.”

Gimli swore so loudly birds fluttered up from the shore, startled-- huge white things with curved necks over long legs like stilts, and sharp bills they apparently used to stab fish in the shallows where they waded. The birds soared over the top of the boat and were gone. Gimli stalked to the oars-- one was tucked against the side of the boat on either side; from watching the sailors back the boat, he knew they went through the round metal oarlocks and were dipped into the water, but that was the extent of this knowledge.

“Teach me how to row.”

“You cannot do it alone; the boat’s keel is too broad.”

“One of you take the other oar,” Gimli glowered. “There is no time to waste, I tell you! If you will get me to Belfalas before the elf departs, I will give you coins of mithril and gold.” He held up his purse, shaking it so they could hear it jingle.

They blinked at him, owlish, and after a moment Esta went to take up an oar.

Gimli strove to imitate him, sweating and following the commands they barked at him: “Slower. Not so hard! Do not dip the oar so deep. Lift your oar; we’re too near the bank! Turn!” Attëa flung himself at the rudder, narrowly keeping them from steering straight into a bank due to Gimli’s over-enthusiastic rowing.

After that the sailors rowed, sweating and grumbling over their labors and their unwanted passenger, until the wind rose and bellied out the big square sails, pushing them forward a bare fraction faster than the oars.

Gimli found himself unable to sleep, so he lay upon his back and stared at the stars until a mist arose from the river and eclipsed them. They were forced to tie up at the bank, no longer able to follow the channel in the silvery void, the fog lit from far above by the unseen moon.

“If we try to make headway in this fog, we will run into a shoal or a submerged tree,” Attëa snapped when Gimli urged them to continue on. “Then our boat will sink and you will be left to trudge to Belfalas in wet boots-- if indeed you make it to shore. I think you will not; you would sink like a stone in that armor, dwarf.” He paused and spoke again, more kindly. “Your elf’s boat will tie up as well; none can see to navigate in a fog such as this.”

Gimli groaned, too dismayed even to draw out his pipe and smoke. Arod stamped and swished his tail, flicking away gnats and mosquitoes that made Gimli glad of his thick beard-- they could not reach much of his skin to bite.

He covered his face with a fold of blanket and tried to imagine what he would say if-- when-- he caught up to Legolas. Time and again he pictured himself walking up to the elf, opening his mouth, and stammering heartfelt confessions that sounded clumsy and contrived, words spoken too late to be perceived as anything but false. He wandered into sleep, and Legolas’s cold, remote face haunted his fitful dreams: the elf’s agate-hard eyes sought the horizon rather than fixing upon Gimli as he spoke. He thought of seizing the elf to convince him with a kiss, or of hacking holes in the elven ship so that Legolas might not sail at once, but must stay and listen until he was persuaded-- but he knew in his heart such things would not work.

Gimli shifted, the blanket tangled uncomfortably about his legs, and drifted deeper into dreams-- but this time, pursue the elf though he might, he never got the chance to make his case at all. Legolas stayed just out of reach-- just beyond the horizon. They made it to the shore not far apart, but Legolas’s boat had already sailed, and when Gimli’s craft pursued it into the sea, the boat before him rose from the waves like one of the great white birds and sailed smoothly into the sky, whereas Gimli’s boat stayed tethered to the rolling waters no matter how he steered.

He could see the elf standing there, facing away, his long hair gleaming under the sun, but Legolas gave no heed to Gimli’s call. He never turned back, his face pointed stubbornly forward as he receded, the boat growing smaller and smaller until it was lost in the glow of the setting sun.

Gimli jerked himself awake, his despairing cry echoing in the air, and saw the sailors’ eyes glittering at him with alarm-- one from the tiller and one from his nest of blankets beneath the mast. “A nightmare,” he said, and did not explain further.

“We will reach Pelargir before morning,” Attëa said. “We must stop there briefly.”

Gimli inflated his chest, indignant and ready to protest.

“We must have water, and your horse needs fodder.”

Gimli wilted and gave a dismal nod. The man spoke truth. “Let us make our stop as short as we may,” he said.

“We would have the purse you promised,” Esta said. “It will not take long.”

“I will give you half,” Gimli said. “The rest is dependent on my success.” If he found Legolas, if he could convince him to stay-- with the elf by his side, he could think of no need for coin: nothing he could buy that would give him greater joy; no scrape so impossible he might need to pay his way out. With Legolas by his side, he could do anything.

Without him…

No. It would not-- _could_ not be. He would not allow it, and he would not bring it down upon himself by thinking of it when he was awake, and could control his thoughts.

At least, cold comfort though it was, at least he knew now. _If nothing else, you will know him when you lose him._ Dwalin could not have known how prophetic his words would become. Even the uncertainty of the day before was gone, now, and the knowledge sat within his bones-- almost too late to be useful, almost too late to call his One back to his arms.

His One. His One, whose touch he had known and not recognized, whose love he had had and thrown away. His One, who might never forgive him, even if Gimli could catch him-- how could Legolas ever be expected to trust him again?

Gimli had not recognized the shores they passed, but he knew Pelargir instantly. They had fought on this very shore-- it was yet trampled and bare from their battle, and perhaps from the touch of the dead soldiers who had fought there. It was on this shore that he had seen Legolas freeze and crumple, stricken by the sea-longing that even now threatened to take him away from Gimli forever. It was on this shore--

He fought it, but he could not stop his face from screwing up in pain, and he sat abruptly against the wall of the boat, drawing his knees up and huddling around them, as though by becoming smaller he could lessen the enormity of his shame and regret.

“Are you well, Master Dwarf?” asked Esta, with surprising sympathy in his voice.

“Well enough,” croaked Gimli. He handed over the purse in his hands, suddenly without a care for the amount in it. What use was coin to him if he could not catch Legolas? “Buy what you need, and be as quick as you can. I will not come ashore.”

“You are sure?” said Attëa. “It does not seem boat travel is to your taste, and you--”

“It will take too long,” said Gimli, “and we have no time to waste. Go.” He could not keep the imploring tone out of his voice. “Please.”

They did not question him further. They went.

He watched until they were some distance away, and would not be able to hear him. Then he sank his forehead to rest against his knees and stopped fighting the tears that would come.

He lost track of his surroundings for some time, too occupied in the pain of the hot tears forcing their way from the corners of his eyes, the choking pressure in his nose and throat that made it impossible to breathe quietly, even as he tried to calm himself down. It would not do for his companions to return and find him thus-- but he could not stop, for in that moment he could not bear to live with himself and the pain he had caused, the harm he had done. The pressure of pain and shame had risen inside him to such a peak that he had no choice now but to let it out.

After a few moments, he felt something soft nudge his shoulder, and looked up, wiping sore eyes with the back of his hand-- and when he saw what it was, he let out a watery laugh. Arod had come to nose at his shaking shoulder, butting his head gently against Gimli’s own, as though to offer what comfort he could-- or at least to grieve together for the companion who had left them both.

“He would not have left you,” Gimli said, his voice stuffed and hoarse. “Not if he had a choice-- but I hurt him.” He had not said it aloud thus before, so baldly-- he could not decide if it made him feel better or worse. He said it again, to get used to the words. “I hurt my One so badly that I drove him away.” He made a noise that might have been a laugh or a sob. “You ought not comfort me, my friend-- you ought to turn against me for what I have done.”

Arod whuffed softly, as though in disagreement, and lipped at Gimli’s fraying braids… and despite himself, Gimli could not help but give a weak smile. “You are right, of course,” he said. “We will bring him back.” He wiped his eyes, pressing cold hands to the burning patches in his cheeks in the hope that they would subside before Imrahil’s men returned. “We must.”

*****

The sun rose at Legolas’s back as his paravel coasted through the marsh and sandbars where Anduin met Belfalas and the great river split into many waters, funneled between banks of mud and grasses. Legolas watched the soft rosy light touch the tips of the marsh grass, then the tops of low-rolling tussocks, and finally shade from rose through to gold as it rose above the horizon. Gulls wheeled in the morning light, their raucous cries echoing hollowly over the low, flat land.

He spied what he thought was a log floating just beneath the surface of the water, a few lumps poking up, but then the water swirled beneath his gaze and a long-tailed crocodile dragged itself from the silvery surface to lie on a sandbar exposed by the outgoing tide. Its slit-eyed pupil fixed him with an unnerving stare as a small gray and black bird flitted down to settle on its back.

The crocodile spread its jaws wide; to Legolas’s amazement, the bird hopped into its maw and began to peck at its teeth, but was not devoured summarily. Instead the beast closed its eyes and waited for the waxing sunlight to warm its basking-spot.

“There is no settlement on the shore closer than Dol Amroth,” said a man at his shoulder. “But there is one upon the island of Tolfalas. We will stop to reprovision there, and to exchange some of our cargo for other things.”

“Where is the elf-haven?” Legolas asked.

“It is north of here, where the River Ethring and the Morthond come together,” someone else said. “It lies within sight of Dol Amroth. There are great grey ships there, made of wood felled far inland and brought down by boat to be cured upon the beaches.” The man paused, thoughtful. “The elven shipwrights work their craft for no money, yet they prosper despite that, for those who sail leave behind their possessions, and any of the elves in that place who like may take and use them as they see fit.”

Legolas could not see how any elf might live at the very verge of the sea, hearing the cry of the gulls and the crash of the surf, and yet remain in Middle-Earth, ignoring the call. But then, perhaps they had more of a reason--

He cut that thought off before it could bloom. “I would go to Edhellond,” he said.

“Many ships go up the coast carrying trade between Dol Amroth and Minas Tirith,” someone else agreed. “You need only ask, and one will find a berth for you. It is known that Prince Imrahil has elvish blood, and your people are welcome in these lands-- until you leave us.” He glanced toward the western sky, where tall ranks of cloud stood massed, the morning light turning them to brilliant, billowing white.

“You may be some days,” he said. “For there is a storm sweeping in from the west, and no boat will sail along the unprotected coast until it has spent its fury. Even we may not return to Minas Tirith yet, for the rains that fall upon the land will swell the river to flood, and even if we cared to risk the debris of the flood, we would make no headway against its rush.”

Legolas turned to regard the sky with unfriendly eyes. He resented anything that delayed his departure… but it could not be helped.

“Then let us make landfall upon Tolfalas,” Legolas said. “And I will seek passage north.”


	19. Chapter 19

At first, Gimli had worried that he would not be able to recover his composure before Imrahil’s men returned; now, as the minutes passed with no sign of them, he regretted that he had not gone ashore with them, so that he might drag them back out to the boat and put an end to whatever might be taking them so long.

Tension roiled in his belly and seized at his limbs, until he could stand still no longer; he paced the length of the boat many times, ignoring even the way the shift of his weight changed the balance of the boat on the river. The water seemed choppier than it had been before, though he could not even begin to speculate whether that was a result of the weather or of his own fevered thoughts.

He only stopped pacing when Arod snorted unhappily and tossed his head, clearly uncomfortable with the motion of the ship under Gimli’s heavy boots. Relenting, Gimli went to the horse and stroked his neck and nose once more, trying to find calm in the rhythmic motion of his hands. He understood now, as he never had before, why he had so often found Legolas with the horse when their journey had grown dismal or treacherous, why the elf had spent so much time in the stables during their weeks in Minas Tirith. It was strangely soothing to give and receive comfort from Arod, though the horse could surely not understand the fears and doubts that tore at Gimli’s mind and heart.

“Where might they be?” he asked the horse, apologizing internally for all the times he had teased Legolas for doing just this. “Do they know how much they torment both of us?”

He could not say how much time they might have lost already while creeping along in pursuit of the elf. Perhaps Legolas had reached the sea already. Fuming, Gimli could only wait and fret, hoping that the paravel had been similarly delayed.

He had no real understanding of how long he stood waiting on the boat, but it felt like hours-- or years. Finally, though he hardly trusted his own eyes, he saw the sailors returning, laden with bags.

“There you are!” he called, impatience stealing courtesy from his tone. “Hurry up and come aboard; the day has wasted while you tarried!”

“There is no need,” said Attëa, the first to arrive. “We must tie up here for the night. We cannot go any further.”

For a moment, Gimli could only stare. The words did not seem to have entered his mind yet, circling about his ears, their sense not penetrating to his understanding.

Then he could only sputter. “What nonsense is this?” He felt his face growing red again. “After all your insistence on stopping here for supplies, after purchasing them with my coin, meant to ensure that my errand was completed, now you tell me that you made no haste, and intend to make none?”

“It is not our choice, but that of the river,” Esta said. “Do you not see the chop in the water? The onshore breeze has freshened. It will bring a storm.”

“Then all the more haste is needed, that we reach the sea before this storm makes travel impossible.” Gimli flailed a hand toward the west; nothing could be seen in the sky but a faint muddy haze dimming the bright blue. “Should your storm come, we can make landfall and sit it out, if we must.”

“Should the storm come on us, we would do well to be safe at anchor in this harbor, where the floods that come with heavy rain will not sweep us out to sea alongside half the litter of the northern lands,” Attëa said, very sour. “You land-folk are all alike. You have never seen a great sea-storm.”

Gimli had not, but perhaps such a thing would delay even an elven boat.

“I see no storm coming,” he grumbled. “How far is it yet to Belfalas?”

“Perhaps a day.”

“Then let us race this storm of yours-- and I will give you gems, as well,” Gimli said, though they were the last of his wealth, and when they were gone, he would be reduced to eating whatever he could hunt.

Attëa sighed. “I am a fool to listen to you, dwarf.” But he was already moving toward the oars, and in a brief time, they were upon the river once more.

Gimli sat up late that night; the wind from the west was heavy with damp and he felt overwarm even after the sun had set. Maybe there _would_ be a storm; though he could see no cloud, the stars were few behind the haze of moisture in the sky, and flares of lightning lit the western heavens far away despite the lack of clouds visible there at sundown. It made a shudder crawl along Gimli’s spine in spite of himself; as he sat before the mast he became aware of a gradual pall growing over the stars in the western sky-- a certainty when the crescent moon vanished long before it reached the horizon.

It put him in mind of the darkness of Sauron belching forth from its terrible mountain and issuing forth to cover the lands-- only there was no malice behind this storm, only the implacable force of nature, which he might not confront or hope to defeat.

Or perhaps it was not.

The elves spoke of powers who were given dominion over various parts of the world; Gimli could not recall their names or which of them might have been granted power over ocean storms. He knew only of Mahal, whom the elves called Aulë. But there must be a Vala who governed them. Gandalf would know, but he was not here.

Perhaps that Vala had sent this storm to shield Legolas from Gimli’s pursuit. Would Gandalf have known? Would he have spoken of it even if he did?

Gimli scooted back until he could reach Arod, who stood eyeing the west, the whites of his wide brown eyes showing. He whickered to Gimli and nosed at his hand; Gimli fed him a bit of apple. He could see clouds, now, illumined by lightning-- and this time, the low growl of thunder reached them.

“How much farther to Belfalas?” he asked Esta.

“Too far,” he answered, terse. “We will arrive by morning-- but the storm will be upon us by moonset.”

He was right. The first fat droplets of icy rain fell less than an hour later. Gimli stood by Arod, one flap of his cloak flung over the horse’s head to shield him. Before long, his cloak was streaming like a waterfall from the deluge, and the cold rain had soaked through to his skin. Lightning crackled everywhere, stabbing into the wide flat marshes they had entered sometime in the night and making blue-white flame sprout from the tip of the mast.

The sailors cursed to themselves to see it, but continued to row. “That is Ulmo’s Fire; this storm will be terrible indeed. We must stay ahead of the flood these rains will make as they go inland,” Esta shouted to Gimli. But the river rose despite their attempts at haste, and after a time the channel could no longer be found amidst the grasses.

The boat shuddered, nearly flinging Arod to his knees; Gimli cursed and struggled to help the horse remain upright.

“We’ve struck ground,” Attëa cried. “If we are lucky, we will stay grounded--”

But they were not fortunate. The current, which had seemed placid until then, flung up a wave against the grounded boat, pushing without mercy, and swung it sideways, then down the flood with its stern to the fore.

Time and again they hit obstacles as the flood rushed them forward in nightmarish haste, and Gimli took to leaning against the horse, holding him steady against the gunwale of the boat by main strength so that he did not go down. He deeply regretted his choice to bring the beast; what if Arod were lamed or worse, broke a leg? He might have to be put down, and Legolas would never forgive such as that-- just as Gimli would never forgive himself for his folly.

But after a time their course smoothed, the flood seeming to reach a stage so deep their prow could not strike land-- or perhaps they had found the bay. Gimli wondered what had become of the white birds; he hoped they had nests upon high ground far away.

“If we do not have a care, we will miss the harbor of Tolfalas and be swept out to sea,” Attëa cried. “Then the waves will swamp us, and we will drown!”

_Legolas._ Gimli’s heart instantly sent up a terrible pang of fear and misery. Was the elf safe? Had he reached his harbor before the storm struck? At once Gimli ceased to wish the elf delayed. He must be safe ashore. He _must._

The winds rose, lashing brine into his face so hard it stung like hornets. He tried to stare ahead into the night-- and spied the stony face of a cliff not far away. White spray crashed against its jagged edges, a hiss louder than the deluge and the bellowing thunder.

“An island!” he cried. “It is Tolfalas!”

He left Arod and went to aid with the oars, freeing Esta to see to the rudder. He strained so hard he thought the slender wood must break-- but his efforts were repaid when they nosed into the harbor, barely evading the break of spray against a final outcrop of cliff. At once the wind lessened, cut off by the jut of stone, and the tossing of the boat eased.

Boats lay moored at a dock there, some swamped beneath the waves, their lines snubbed too short to the submerged mooring posts of the dock. But it was a haven, and they made for an empty berth where they might secure themselves to a boat that floated next to them and huddle in her shelter, enduring the rough thump of their gunwales as the waves rocked them hard against one another.

Arod stood shaking with terror, his head down, his mane streaming, and when Gimli went to him he would not take food-- but he was sound, his legs undamaged. Gimli held the horse’s head against his breast and tried to soothe his trembling. Any other beast would have run mad, would have kicked his way through the boards or sprung from the boat to his death in the flood-- but Arod was wise for a horse. He had journeyed far with the elf, and with Gandalf and the Lord of the Mearas. He had not given in to the madness of fear, as a lesser beast surely would have done.

“Legolas will be here,” Gimli assured Arod. “He must. He could not take ship in such a storm. He must wait until it clears. We will find him.”

He spoke not of trying to leave the boat-- he could not do that unkindness to the horse, or to the men. They huddled on the other end even now, stares sullen and hard, and he knew that they would no more be moved than the wall of a cliff. Even he, desperate as he was, wobbled on his legs and did not like his chances at walking on dry land, let alone climbing from a ship and hoisting a horse onto land as well.

He had lost all sense of the time of day, save to distinguish darkness from light, but now as the clouds slowly began to ease, he could see that the night had passed as they were tossed here and there, that time had been as indifferent to their errand as the weather. And yet now he found he could hardly manage even the desperate energy that had driven him for so long.

“I have led you all on a fool’s errand,” he said miserably, to Arod and to the men alike. “I am sorry.”

And a fool’s errand it was. How could he have justified this danger to so many lives, merely for his own heart? How could he be so sure that Legolas would be happier with him here, where he had already suffered so much, than in the land he had yearned for for so long?

Arod seemed unable or unwilling to provide the comfort he had given Gimli earlier; still Gimli could feel his body trembling, and he dropped his own head. How was it that he had learned nothing from all that he had done to Legolas? He had merely caused more pain in his efforts to lessen that which he had already inflicted-- both in his clumsy efforts to retain Legolas’s friendship and even now, in his mad scramble to get him back.

The sailors did not respond-- perhaps now seeing that he understood his own folly, they felt no need to rub salt in the wound by reminding him that they had seen it long before. And yet they had come with him all this way…

He had given them his purse already; now he reached into a hidden inner pocket in his tunic and fumbled for a pouch there. He had kept it safe throughout the whole of their quest, something his father had given him long ago “for if you find yourself in a scrape too great to solve under your own power:” a fine necklace of gold and rubies, easily worth more than all that Gimli’s purse held. Gems he had promised them, and gems he would give them, and what did it matter if he did not complete his errand, when it had been so useless to begin with? “Here,” he said. “Take this as my thanks for all you have done for me, even in my hopeless fervor.”

The noise of the boat rocking and the water sloshing against the side had seemed louder before, when he had had to shout over it. Now, with the absence of any response from his companions, it seemed to have dulled to near nothing.

Then, the necklace was plucked from his hand. “I would not have thought to hear you call your errand hopeless, especially not now that the worst has been weathered.”

Gimli’s head snapped up so quickly his vision blurred. Esta had taken the necklace from him, and was examining it. “I am no dwarf,” he said, “and so I have less skill in appraising the value of gems. But oft I had been told that the dwarves’ knowledge of stones and jewels was rivaled only by their fierce determination to complete any task they set for themselves. I should be disappointed indeed to learn that only one of these statements were true.”

Gimli blinked. “You… I… what?”

“It seems to me,” said Esta, “that you have less reason now to despair than before. We have managed to arrive safely at Tolfalas; you and your horse are both unharmed, and the elf you pursue cannot be as far ahead of you than he was at the beginning of your journey-- for he, too, will have had to wait out this storm. And, indeed, the sky clears even as we speak. So I do not understand why you despair now, when your hopes have no reason to darken.”

Gimli looked up, and saw that Esta was right. The clouds, which had once been so heavy that day was difficult to distinguish from night, had lightened, their undersides faintly golden from a distantly-setting sun. Only a few drops remained of the rain that had soaked them and their ship-- and it was not merely that the rocking waves seemed less, but that they were. The storm was ending.

Attëa rose as well, on legs that betrayed none of the wobble Gimli felt in his own. “And it would dishonor all your sacrifice and all our efforts if you should give up now.”

Gimli squared his jaw and nodded, reclaiming his courage. “I will follow him,” he resolved, closing his fist so hard the nails cut into his flesh. “How soon may we leave this boat?” The dock was still submerged, and he would not like to risk either himself or the horse in the soup of shattered wood the harbor had become during the storm.

“We will take you to find a landing, but you will have to coax the horse to cross using a board,” Attëa said.

Arod raised his head and trumpeted, shaking his mane; the message could not be clearer: he wanted off the boat, and meant to find Legolas at once thereafter.


	20. Chapter 20

With great caution they rowed across the harbor, detouring about wrecks and branches until they found a spit of sand that seemed hospitable and might be approached. Esta beached the boat gently, and Gimli was glad of its shallow draft. He turned to Arod, who flared his nostrils, then took two rapid strides across the deck and hopped lightly over the gunwale at the bow, alighting half upon the sand and half in water. He floundered for a moment for footing, then trotted neatly up the beach and over the high-water line, where tangled rope and fishing floats rested perhaps a foot from the lapping wavelets: the tide had begun to recede. Arod glanced back at Gimli, stamping a foot upon the sand with impatience.

“Good fortune on you as you return to Minas Tirith,” Gimli said to the sailors, clambering awkwardly off the boat and dropping into the water with a splash. His boots immediately filled. He set his hands upon the boat, helping to push it back away from the land.

“We will use that fortune you have given us to buy a larger vessel,” Esta said as the boat scraped backward and Gimli strode into water deep as his collarbone. “But should you wish future passage, I must ask you to seek it elsewhere!”

Gimli slogged laborious back up the beach as the boat drew away, and thought it would be long before he willingly climbed aboard a boat again, but he would not say never-- for his errand meant he might not last the day without relenting from his vow.

He stood at last on dry land, water streaming from every inch of him. There was no way for him to mount the horse unaided, so he faced his companion instead. “Let us go to the city,” he said. “It may be we will find the elf in a lodging there.”

Gimli did not delay even long enough to empty water from his boots before setting out. It took perhaps forty minutes to pick their way back to the harbor. The air was so thick with water breathing was like drinking soup; during that span Gimli’s clothing dried not at all.

The harbormaster had no time for Gimli, harassed as he was by dismayed boat owners whose vessels had been broken or scuttled during the storm-- and merchants whose cargoes had been damaged or even lost.

“Many elves pass this way, most bound for Edhellond,” the harbormaster snapped when Gimli had bullied his way to the fore. “Some blond, some dark. Many of them carry longbows. I cannot say if I have seen the one you seek.” He turned aside to sign a document that a snaggle-toothed mariner with a hoop of silver in his ear thrust forward at him. “If your elf arrived within the last day, he is still upon the island. No boats have left this harbor and the ferries have not run to the mainland since the evening two nights past. They will start again today.” He scowled at Gimli. “I would go to the ferry at once, if I were you, and would not waste my time inquiring at hostels. Elves do not tarry long in this place when they seek the havens.”

“Where does the ferry depart?”

“The northwest shore. Seek the ferry road.” Dismissing him as unimportant, the harassed harbormaster returned his attention to the crowd of disgruntled sailors and tradesmen.

“Where is the ferry road?” Gimli cried, clambering up onto a sheared piling and using it as a mounting block. He settled awkwardly onto Arod’s back and followed half a dozen pointing fingers that stabbed toward the northwest.

The horse was eager to run, so Gimli let him, hanging on for dear life. They dodged nimbly around piles of shattered wood and tumbled stone as they made their way through the outskirts of the city and galloped along the shore on a well-traveled wagon track that was nevertheless empty of travelers, its sandy ruts steaming faintly under a brassy, cloudless sky.

As they rounded a promontory, Gimli glimpsed a flat-bottomed craft like a barge far out on the bay, too far away for him to discern anything about the passengers or cargo, his eyes dazzled by the sun reflected on the water. Again he wished in vain for keen Elvish vision.

Arod took the downward slope without slowing, and they pulled up before the empty landing in a flurry of flying sand. A small rickety hut stood there-- perhaps not so frail as it seemed, for it had withstood the wind and rain of the storm. An old man poked his head out, squinting at them.

“The ferry’s just gone. It’ll be nightfall before it returns. Old Harry won’t come back against the tide, not with the river in flood stage and all.” He squinted at Gimli. “Wouldn’t have gone out at all this morning if not for that elf. Insisted, he did. Wouldn’t hear of waiting another minute.”

Gimli closed his eyes in dismay. “Not until nightfall?” he said.

“No.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Why such a hurry, anyhow? I had that elf here all night and day, waiting to cross at the first instant and badgering Harry until he gave in. I don’t understand the hurry to leave-- their havens will still be there tomorrow.”

“Do many elves come by here, then?” The man spoke as though it were no great wonder to have an elf demanding passage, only at the haste-- and the harbormaster too had said that many elves passed this way. Gimli supposed it was a comfort to know that Legolas would not be traveling alone, with no one to protect him-- and yet if there were other elves at the haven he sought, with ships already prepared, Gimli would have no chance of catching up to him.

The old man nodded. “More now than ever before-- it seems they’ve decided to leave in great swarms, now their great enemy is defeated.” He shrugged. “I hardly understand the haste, not now they have nothing to threaten them here, but I suppose no one ever has time or care to enlighten me.”

Gimli remembered Legolas’s words to him long ago, about riding to the end together, about completing the task he had set. Remembered that the elf had stayed only through Aragorn’s wedding ceremony-- and had apparently made all necessary plans to flee as soon as his obligations were over. He had dared to hope that Legolas might hold to their bargain, or that he might even wish to. Had thought, perhaps, that the friendship he had to offer might be enough to keep Legolas here. Or perhaps he had not thought about it at all-- but now he understood, understood on a heart-deep level, the loss and pain that he had inflicted on his friend. His love.

“Perhaps they merely have nothing left to tether them here,” he said: soft, almost absent-minded.

The old man looked at him with eyes sharper than Gimli had expected. “And what brings a dwarf here, in such a hurry to reach a place where few who are not elves tend to go?”

Gimli gave a half-smile, the best he could muster. “A tether, perhaps,” he said, and would say no more.

They waited for the ferry to return with few more words spoken between them. With every minute that passed with no boat on the horizon, Gimli’s impatience and desperation grew. Had Legolas reached the opposite shore yet? If it had taken so long for him to arrive, Gimli must then allow for double that time and more for the ferry to return and to take himself and Arod across once more. Why, by that time, Legolas might arrive at the elf haven already-- and there would be ships there, ready for him, ready to take him across the sea, where Gimli might not follow.

And after…

What would he do after?

Gimli thought of Dwalin, of how he had been alone for nearly eight decades, for more than half the time Gimli had been alive. He did not wait for a love who did not know; his love had left him, and yet he went on. So, too, might Gimli need to do.

At least, he thought, he need not live through Legolas’s death. At least he would know that the elf was safe and happy in his home across the sea, even if he had needed to flee so far to escape the pain of Gimli’s cruel ignorance. Legolas would be well, even if he sailed.

Gimli too would go on, of that he had no doubt. He might devote himself to a craft, or he might place himself at Aragorn’s service. Perhaps one day he would return to the Glittering Caves, and discover joy there again-- but it would never be the same; always he would have the memory of Legolas praising his words and agreeing to see the wonder, only never to do so. Was there a place on Middle-earth Gimli could go that would not remind him of the elf, even if they had not been there together?

He had waited perhaps an hour, the sun sinking ever lower in a dark orange ball, when he saw it-- the ferry was returning, within his sight once more. His breath caught, and his every muscle tensed; he fought the urge to pace back and forth, lest the ferrier be alarmed and refuse to take him.

Still, he could not resist running to meet the man as soon as he had docked his boat. “I would cross the river!” he said. “With as much speed as you can manage!”

The ferrier--Harry-- was even older than the man in the hut; he frowned down at Gimli through eyes filmed with age. “A dwarf?” he said in a cracked, slow voice that made Gimli want to tug the words out of his mouth. “We don’t get your kind here often.”

“I imagine not,” said Gimli, too impatient to humor him much further. “Will you take me?”

The old man threw his hands up into the air. “Always ‘take me here’ and ‘take me there’!” he said. “No patience, no respect from the youth these days--”

Gimli bit back the urge to protest that he was much older than this man, and Legolas many times his age. “I will pay you,” he said. He had given away most of his wealth to the sailors, but he yet wore golden cuffs and rings in his ears, and small sapphire studs piercing the skin over his left eyebrow. He removed them now and held them out in a cupped hand. “I will give you gold and gems if you will ferry me across the river as quickly as you can.”

The ferryman hemmed and hawed for a few moments longer, but he allowed himself to be convinced-- and in moments that could not have been as long as they felt, Gimli and Arod were both aboard the ferry and traveling once more across the river.

Arod pawed unhappily at the boards, but the transit was smooth. The moon was just rising to the east, its crescent thicker tonight. There would be plenty of light for the elf to travel by. How far ahead might he be? He would be afoot, but he was swift and light of foot. Gimli would be mounted-- at least, if he could find a stone to climb so that he might clamber atop the horse. He might make up some ground if it were daylight, but he could not ride hard by night.

“Is there a road to Edhellond?” he asked Harry.

“There is. The elves who are afoot take a path up through the mountains of Dor-en-Ernil. They take the south pass, as-is.” He eyed Gimli. “If they have mounts, they follow the shore. It is a slower way, but I would guess a beast cannot go through the pass.”

Gimli might have groaned. If Arod could not take the paths there, it seemed likely he could not, either; he had not the elf’s nimble feet or long reach. And he might be lost, if the way was not plain.

“How often do the ships leave the elf-haven?”

Harry considered that, and spat over the side as he meditated on the question. “Well, now, not so often as all that, but the small boats go regular. There hasn’t been a big one for some weeks now. They’ve been building up its bones at the harbor, though; I’ve seen the baulks of timber shipped across, each one, and a good trade it is, ferrying them over. A dozen or more small ships went out before the storm, so I’m guessing there aren’t many of them laid up and ready. But that big boat, now…” he shrugged. “If the storm didn’t set them back, it ought to be ready. I ferried the sails not last week. Twenty rolls of canvas, if there was a one!”

“Then a wagon may pass on the shoreward road?” Gimli did not care if the road was patrolled by oliphaunts as long as it was passable and easy to follow.

“Aye, those grey wagons such as they make with the carved-branch sides. Too pretty to haul rough supplies, though they use them for such. There be elf-maids who ride in them now and again, too, a much more fitting cargo if you ask me.” He chuckled and winked at Gimli, who could not sympathize as he might once have done, not now he had learned the shape of his heart, and not with Legolas in the balance.

Gimli ignored the old man’s prattle, answering him with an absent word here and there. He patted for his pouch of pipeweed; there were still a few bowls’ worth left, but he had no matches and his flint and tinder were buried in his pack-- the tinder likely soaked to dripping. He sighed and left his pipe in his pocket, fidgeting. A ship-fish surfaced nearby, blowing a great gust of reeking air from its blow-hole, its silver sides gleaming in the moonlight. Gimli stepped back from the spray in haste.

“Good luck, they are. A fine omen for your journey.” Harry lit his own pipe from the lantern, using a straw, but did not offer Gimli a light, and Gimli was too agitated to call him to task for it. He could see the gleam of pale sand not far away, and would not be hindered in his haste when they reached the shore.

It seemed to take forever for Harry to maneuver the barge in; as they neared the shore he struck sail and began to pole the craft forward with ponderous strokes. Gimli resisted the urge to scream, closing his eyes and drawing deep breaths of salt air, heavy with the smell of marsh-mud and fish.

As luck would have it, there was no sign of any rock or stump-- or even a piling from a pier-- that he might use to mount the horse. He raised his eyes to the heavens; surely the Valar were opposed to his errand.

“We had a fine dock here. The storm took it,” Harry commented. “It shifted the whole sandbar a hundred ells northwards; the river’s mouth alongside it. It’ll take time to rebuild.”

Gimli grunted acknowledgment, pushing the boarding-ramp off the edge of the boat and coaxing Arod over it and onto the sand; at least there was a way off without wetting his feet, which still squelched from the morning drenching he had taken. He had not thought to try to dry himself as he fretted for the barge to return, and now he regretted it, as the onshore breeze cut through his cloak and chilled him, making him shiver.

“Come,” he told Arod, leading him down the beach without bothering to answer the old man’s farewell. “We will find a dune or some other thing so that I may climb up to ride.”

*****

It was freeing to be alone once more.

For days he had been surrounded by others: the other men on the paravel he had taken as far as Tolfalas, also trapped on the island with him; the chatty men who ran the ferry and had asked him incessantly after his purpose. Days ago, it might have served as a distraction; now, reduced to his purpose and little else, Legolas was glad to be relieved of it.

He thought, dimly, that he hardly recognized this shell that he had become: filled with nothing more than a longing for a land he had never seen. And yet he knew that he moved so quickly, thought only on this longing, so that he might not have to think on the grief that had scraped him so hollow to begin with, had torn out all that he was and left him with nothing.

And now he ran, light with the absence of any burden on his back, letting himself be filled with the wind that streamed past him and the reminder of where he was going. He ran, letting himself forget all else.

He had lost himself, it was true. But the sooner he could cross the sea, the sooner he arrived at his destination, the sooner he could leave the past and the pain behind. The sooner he might begin to refill the empty shell of himself with whatever he might become.

Legolas turned his face into the wind and ran on.


	21. Chapter 21

Arod seemed glad to be given his head at last. Gimli had found a high tree stump-- thankfully-- not long into their slow run along the shore, and now he leaned close over Arod’s neck and clung to the saddle as the horse ran, no longer fazed by stormy seas or long hours of inaction. Unlike any of Gimli’s other companions, he seemed to understand and share Gimli’s desire for haste.

They rode through that first night, stopping only briefly for Arod to graze and drink. Gimli ate what little he had left while they rode, loath to climb down without an aid to boost himself back up. But he felt himself tiring, and Arod’s step began to slow even as the night sky began to lighten into grey-pink dawn.

As morning drew on, the road became more crowded with men and horses-- and soon enough, as Arod began to flag in earnest, the walls and buildings of a city came into view. Gimli frowned up through tired eyes at the banners flying from the tops of towers and made out the familiar swan-- this must be Dol Amroth, Imrahil’s city, and the place where Esta and Attëa would likely be returning in some days-- for he could not imagine they would wish to sail back to Gondor.

He had little left to give, but he bartered the last of his jewelry and the finely-wrought dagger he carried for a bed and meal at an inn and a stable for Arod. He did not like to stop, but they would both be useless if they did not rest, and-- here or over the sea-- Legolas would grieve as much as Gimli should harm come to the horse.

He had expected a return of the troubling dreams of before, but Gimli felt he had hardly closed his eyes before he was opening them once more to the light of late afternoon. It was no time to begin another long ride, but he could not bear to waste any more time. Legolas would not have stopped to rest, he was certain, and the little time he might make up would be entirely wasted if he did not rise now and carry on his ride.

It might have been the time of day, but they encountered very few travelers after leaving Dol Amroth, which increased Gimli’s unease rather than lessening it. Had he seen any of the elf-wagons Harry had described, he might have been reassured that at least he traveled in the right direction, or that he would arrive at Edhellon before the great grey ship departed the harbor. As it was…

The road descended onto a broad expanse of sandy beach, and Gimli nudged Arod toward the water line so that he would not have to labor in the shifting sand. He kept a wary eye out toward the water, but there were no signs of vessels within sight. If he kept their pace slow but steady, he and Arod might go through the night and find themselves at Edhellon by morning.

Arod seemed to concur; he paced with patience, a gait that he could keep up for many hours yet. Gimli tried not to nod in the saddle, hypnotized by the swish of the waves and the sway of the horse underneath him. He thought again of what he would say to the elf. It was too much to hope that Legolas would be moved to abandon his purpose by the mere fact of Gimli’s presence, and yet adequate words continued to evade him. He could only hope that he would gain eloquence when he was before his friend-- his love.

Tipping his head back, Gimli watched a white albatross wheel overhead, the black tips of its wings making his vision spin dizzily. How long had it been since he ate and rested properly? As long as he could remain upright until he reached the haven, he did not care.

By evening, he thought he could see the havens-- a smudge of silvery-gray between the dark rocks of rising mountains and the pale sands. It would be a long way yet; luckily, the site lay on the near side of a broad river, but the bay curved far out of Gimli’s way, and there were the foothills of the mountains yet to be crossed where they had flung a long spur of granite down into the sea. Perceiving that was near, he nudged Arod up off the beach and back onto the road, which began to climb through a field of jagged black boulders, still draped with seaweed-wrack from the battering of the storm. Seals barked from an unseen shelter amidst the stones upon the beach, a lonely echo that made his heart sink into mournful and melancholy thoughts.

Thus he passed the long and dreary night, singing loudly to himself and waving his arms about when nothing else would suffice to keep him awake. Still, he fell into a weary daze, and would almost have failed to realize where he was had not a great gate arisen suddenly to block his path-- a gate of silvery wood bound with well-wrought steel, its two halves fashioned like the prow of a boat. Elves stood there, and held him within the sights of their bows as one came out, the gates parting to allow him passage, then sealing again.

“Why has one of the _naugrim_ come here?” The elf was old, with silvery hair and a whispering voice, but Gimli did not need for the words to be any louder; the old epithet was enough to let him know he had found a trouble he’d failed to anticipate.

His mouth fell open, and he sought in desperation for an answer-- and one came to him, as if on the wings of mercy.

“The prince of Mirkwood left Minas Tirith in such haste, he forgot his horse.” Gimli reached to touch Arod’s proud neck. “A fine beast of Rohan, but loyal to his new master.” Despite his weariness, Arod lifted his head and whinnied proudly, stamping his feet. “--I was dispatched to follow and to see them rejoined ere the prince sails.”

“He will have no use for a horse where he is bound.” The aged elf regarded Gimli without liking.

“Would you have them parted, then, without a chance to say farewell?” Gimli straightened himself in the saddle. “This beast was a gift to Legolas Thranduilion, made personally by Éomer, King of Rohan.”

The elf eyed Arod with suspicion. “Your kind are not welcome here,” he said. “I will take the horse to Thranduilion.”

Gimli’s heart leaped with joy and hope-- then Legolas was yet within the city; he had not sailed!

“I was given this charge by Gandalf the White,” Gimli stretched the truth as far as it would go without breaking. “Legolas and I are known to one another, for I was one of the Nine Walkers sent against Sauron in the War of the Ring by Lord Elrond of Rivendell.”

The gatekeeper eyed him with doubt. “It may be that is so,” he said. “But those who enter here are bound for the Undying Lands. They have left mortal business far behind them.”

Gimli eyed him, shrewd-- this elf might speak truly, but it seemed he was not of those who sought Valinor himself. Upon his head he wore a fine circlet, and his robes were woven with threads of silver and gold. His chain of office was rich with gems. Perhaps….

“I offer these as a pledge of my good faith,” Gimli said, and reached to his hair, which was bound with clasps of truesilver, cunningly wrought. He unfastened them and let them lie in his palm, rolling them a little so that they might catch the light. “They are made of Moria-silver, but what be such trivial things when set against the friendship of one of the Nine Walkers-- and the errand of Mithrandir?” His hair began to fray in the wind from the sea, but he ignored it, watching his quarry with keen attention.

The elf tilted his head, but the silver gleamed in his eyes, and Gimli knew the hook was set.

“I will take these things in token of your pledge, and you may deliver the prince’s horse,” he said. “But then begone ere sunset, or it will go hard with you, dwarf.”

Gimli bowed, his unbound beard brushing the cobblestones, and led Arod through the gates, which closed behind them with a snap. He gazed out into the maze of the Elvish city at last, daunted by its many tree-shaded paths.

“Where is the prince?” he asked.

“He is at the docks,” the elf laughed unkindly. “You had better scurry, if you wish to reach him before the great ship is away.”

Gimli could have snarled, but he did not have time. He did not like to present the armed elves with his back, but he could hardly even allow that thought into his mind before he was searching for something, anything, he might use as a mounting block, and he could find nothing--

Arod let out a snort, the impatience of the noise rivaling even Gandalf at his most crotchety, and Gimli watched in a split second of absolute astonishment as the horse carefully lowered himself to his knees.

But there was no time to marvel-- sparing only a moment to be thankful for this unexpected generosity, Gimli scrambled onto Arod’s back, wrapping his hands into the horse’s mane-- and Arod rose to his feet once more, and they were off.

They thundered down the paths, following the faintest shimmer of the moon on the water off in the distance-- so long as they moved towards the moon, Gimli thought, they must be moving in the right direction. It was late, and few elves were about in the city-- and he dared not think of what that might mean.

“As quickly as you can,” he whispered to Arod, the words choking in his throat. “I am sorry for all I have put you through, but go now with all speed, so our labors might be rewarded!”

He would never know if it was the blood of the horses of Rohan in Arod’s veins, or his time as the steed of an elf, but he swore the horse understood him. He sped up.

Gradually, the thick groves of trees lessened; the ground turned softer beneath Arod’s feet and he was forced to slow his pace. They must be nearing the shore; Gimli urged Arod to turn, squinted ahead, and-- _yes_ \-- he could make out the shimmer of dark water just ahead, and a ground of wooden slats. The docks.

He dismounted-- making Arod run any further on such ground would only endanger him. “Wait for me,” he said, and then he ran.

There were no ships where he ran, but ahead in the distance, he could make out a cluster of dark shapes. Let those be the ships, he thought-- let them be delayed, still at the dock, let Legolas not yet be on board--

And then he spotted something else, something that made his heart trip in his chest even as he nearly lost his footing on the swaying dock. A larger shape than the rest, large enough that at first he had simply not noticed it for its difference. A ship, no longer docked in the harbor, making its slow but inexorable way out to sea.

He stumbled to a stop. His mouth opened, but his cry came out only in a wheezing rush of strangled air.

“No,” he whispered. Not after all this. Not now.

But it was as though all the words of the people who had counseled him descended on his mind, as loud as the cry of the gulls must have been in Legolas’s own heart: the words that had convinced him that what he felt was love, the reminders of the loneliness of living without his One, the urgings not to give in to despair. For one moment, all was deafening, though outside his own mind all that could be heard was the gentle lapping of waves and the occasional cry of a sea-bird-- and then the noise was sucked away until only silent determination remained, and he was running.

There were elves on the dock, elves who had just helped the large ship to cast off; they stared at him, doubtless wondering what a dwarf did on their docks in such haste. Gimli paid them no mind. He did not know how to steer or sail a ship-- that did not hinder him either. There were other ships tied to the dock; he could see them growing larger in his sight; rocking gently and straining at their ropes. The current was pulling them, he could see, pulling them in the direction of the ship that had set sail, and for the first time Gimli wondered if there might be a friendly Vala watching over him after all.

Perhaps they were shouting at him to stop, but he could hear nothing but the thundering of his feet on the dock and his blood in his ears. Nor did he stop to ask, or to pay-- what had either of those things gotten him yet today? There was a piling on the end of the dock; bracing one hand on the edge of the first boat he saw, he boosted himself into the air and tumbled over the side into the craft. His axe was in his hand before he had even found his feet; one quick swipe at the mooring rope and he was off.

Not until he was in the water did he realize that the larger ship was moving more quickly than it appeared; doubtless with so many elves on board, they could muster more power than he could manage. But the ship was weighty, and the current pushed Gimli in its direction, and he would catch it. He _would._ He must.

He found the oars, and faintly recalled the instructions the men of Dol Amroth had given him days-- years?-- before. He wrapped his hands around the wood, keeping the oars in their oarlocks, and with all the strength his arms could muster, he pushed and pulled.

For moments-- for brief, euphoric moments-- he thought he might manage it. The current directed him; his arms lent power to the oars. He was gaining-- truly, he was!

But it did not last. The current could carry him far, but not far enough-- soon enough, the river’s waters mingled with the open sea, and Gimli had no more direction. With the absence of the flow, the balance of his arms to the oars began to fail, and the boat turned first to one side, then to the next as he cursed and pushed with the opposite arm. And then-- as he gazed on in horror-- the tiny figures of elves became visible against the mast of the large ship before him… and then white cloth unfurled as a sail rose and caught the wind… and the ship, which had seemed so reachable only moments before, took on a burst of speed.

Another false stroke of the oar, and Gimli’s boat began to turn in a slow circle.

He would not catch him, he realized, his breath snagging in his throat from emotion and exertion. Legolas was slipping away even as he watched.

And so he did the only thing he could, and screamed Legolas’s name.


	22. Chapter 22

Finally.

After days of poor weather and dragging delays so infuriating that Legolas had come to nearly wonder if the Valar themselves had decided to deny him their comfort, _finally_ he was on his way.

He had not been raised on stories of the sea; unlike so many of their very-distant kin, Legolas’s family had always been firmly rooted to Middle-earth, their love and lore devoted to the lands where they had once lived and the forests where they had made their new home. But of course he had known of Valinor, had known of the sea-longing, in old stories and songs he had never imagined would touch him personally. And whenever he had heard such stories, some part of him had always rebelled in disbelief.

He was young, as his kin reckoned years-- far from the elves of older generations who had journeyed to Valinor and back. And although he knew that they existed, some part of him had always wondered if the tales were even true. So many elves yet on this earth had never seen Valinor. How could they truly know that it awaited them?

He wondered no more. He could feel it ahead of him, the motion of the waves and the song of the wind pulsing rightness through his body and his spirit, his heart turned to a compass that pointed in the direction of the straight road. He _knew_ it, as he had never imagined he could, or would.

And yet-- and yet now that he left, he found it was more difficult than he had thought even an hour ago. For all that he yearned toward this land where his soul-deep wounds would be healed, some part of him wondered if he were not wounding himself more by leaving them behind.

He gripped the rail of the ship before him, looking determinedly ahead so as not to glance back behind him. Even now, he could not quiet his hopeless heart! Even now, he imagined that he could hear Gimli’s voice in his ears, calling his name, as though Middle-earth had put up one last fight to keep him--

“No,” he said aloud. “No. I have decided. I am leaving, and I will not return.”

“Your highness?”

Legolas turned. It was one of the elves he had met very briefly at the haven, while they waited for the final preparations to meet. She was from Lórien, even younger than he, and had been less wary to approach him than the others-- though now even she looked timid.

“Yes, Lessel?” he said. There was no sense in being cold to these elves, after all. They would be his companions from henceforth, though he had never met any of them before.

She turned until she was facing in the same direction as he-- back where they had come-- and pointed. “Do you hear it? Someone in that ship is calling your name.”

Legolas’s spine stiffened as though lightning had run through it. _His name._ If she had heard it, as well--

And indeed, where she had pointed, he could see a ship-- smaller than their own, but decidedly of elvish make. It rocked unsteadily on the waves, pointed in the wrong direction, and yet it had been following them, that much was clear. And standing just on the rail-- his heart dropped all the way into his stomach, and then sprang immediately back up to lodge in his throat and steal his breath--

“What is he thinking?” Legolas left Lessel without another word to her, dashing from the bow of the boat to the stern, there to look back once more for a better view. It was undoubtedly Gimli, short and stocky, his hair unbound and wild in the sea-winds. He had removed his armor, Legolas could tell even from the distance-- every line of Gimli’s figure was known to him and beloved, and his mind filled in even what his eyes could not make out--

For a moment, all he could feel was anger: the ripping, burning anger that came with grief-- how _dare_ he do this? How _dare_ he turn up, just as Legolas had make his decision, to make him question everything once more, to add yet more pain to this decision, as though Legolas had not done all that he could, stayed as long as he could--

But the fury was quickly washed away in a flood of terror. For Legolas could make out clearly what Gimli was doing now, gazing ahead at the ship, looking down at the water-- and Legolas’s own name echoed once again in the vast empty space between the boats-- and then he jumped.

“No!” Legolas cried aloud, and then he was running, running to Dernor with his hand on the tiller, and Naedhon where he stood at the wheel. “Turn around! We must go back!”

Naedhon stared at him. “Go back? Why should we--”

“Did you not see?” Legolas cried. “The ship behind us-- its pilot has leapt overboard. He will drown if we do not turn around! Are you so heartless that you would allow an innocent--”

Naedhon stood and peered over the edge of the boat-- so distressingly slowly that Legolas leaped forward and would have seized the wheel himself had Naedhon not taken it from him again, raising his eyebrows. “Fear not, Thranduilion; we are not killers.” And yet the boat inched around so slowly, and Legolas craned his neck to where Gimli’s head bobbed up and down, now above the surface, now below--

“We are coming!” he called, though he had no idea if Gimli could hear him. To the others on the ship, he said, “Have we a rope?”

“I will find you one!” said Lessel, who had followed him; she whirled now, to dash back into the belly of the ship. Indeed, Legolas noticed that the space around him was clearing, as though the elves were confused by his distress, or as though they did not wish to be contaminated by his concern--

Well. They might be leaving all care for Middle-Earth behind along with its shores, but Legolas would not allow Gimli’s life to go along with him.

And yet he watched over the edge of the boat as Gimli’s head sank lower in the water. He had removed his armor, it would not drag him down-- but Gimli had never been a swimmer, and he was no match for the sea. Legolas pressed a hand to his mouth to keep from crying out-- and yet he watched as, still too far from him, Gimli’s head went under once more, and did not come up again.

“Gimli!” he cried then, and would have vaulted over the rail if hands had not held him back; he fought them, his eyes tripping wildly over the surface of the water and begging Gimli to resurface, to hear his voice from beneath the waves and come back up to him. “Gimli, can you hear me? Swim! Gimli, I am coming!”

“I have your rope,” said Lessel, bounding back up to the deck, pale-faced and clutching a silvery coil. “Let me tie it to the railing, so you may drop it down to him--”

“There is no time,” said Legolas furiously, breaking away from the hands that restrained him. “I will go now; lower it down after me.”

“Why?” said Dernor, though still he was busy at the tiller, even as Legolas scrambled up onto the railing, evading the arms that would have reached for him. “Why are you so concerned for one dwarf?”

Perhaps they deserved no answer, but now, after everything, Legolas could not bring himself to hide it. “He is my husband,” he said, and jumped.

*****

The sail rose little by little, jerking against the ropes as the wind caught in its belly; already the ship began to accelerate away from him, toward the one place in the world where he could not follow.

He flung the oars away, for they would not avail him—he had not the craft to steer the boat even if it could catch a sailing ship. He might yet swim, though he was no master of the craft, and the waves were rough. But the risk was no matter.

Swift as thought Gimli flung away his axes and knives. He ripped at the buckles and fastenings of his armor, casting it aside. He could not tell which elf upon the ship was Legolas; some few of them had come to the rail to gawk back at their follower now, but he paid them no mind. He tore at his greaves and his cuisses, flinging them heedless into the bilge—and paused for one moment when his fingers fell upon the pouch that held the tresses of Galadriel, tucked away tenderly within his jerkin… the last thing of value he possessed.

The hair of Galadriel had already cost him more dearly than any other possession he had ever owned.

Savagely Gimli flung the pouch away with all the rest, kicking frantically at his boots. Clad only in his undertunic and linens, Gimli clambered clumsily over the rail. Crying out his One’s name for a final time-- let it be his last word, if it must be-- he toppled into the sea.

The water was cold—far more so than expected, and the shock of it drove his breath from his lungs. He gasped, inhaling water, and kicked for the surface, but even as he strove to draw breath, another wave crest slapped against him, filling his mouth with water.

Gimli sank beneath the crest, choking and inhaling against his will—he would not even have the poor consolation of swimming after Legolas; no, he would perish here. And he deserved it for what he had done.

He rose to the surface a second time, coughing up water, but the waves closed over him again before he could get his breath. Panic gripped him and he flailed, bubbles rising from the black that surrounded him.

A hand closed in his collar and hauled him to the surface— an elf, his long hair plastered to his face, water streaming from his lashes.

Legolas. Legolas had come to save him.

Gimli clung in desperate shame as a rope fell to the surface beside them and the elf caught it.

Strong arms drew them to the side of the ship, and Legolas handed Gimli up. He was dumped unceremoniously onto the deck by a group of elves who stood grouped close around staring at him with wide wondering eyes. And then Legolas appeared over the side, streaming water everywhere, his eyes stormy with anger.

“Why have you done this?” The elf hoisted him aloft with ease, and Gimli dangled from his fist—braids and beard undone and tangled, unarmed and unarmored, completely bereft of all possessions and dignity, a strand of seaweed clinging to his arm. “How dare you come here as you have, after what has passed between us?” He let go without warning and Gimli collapsed to the deck.

“I was wrong,” he said, struggling to his feet. As he had feared all along, his skill with words failed him in this moment: he stood at the center of a ring of frowning elves, all fine robes and bright eyes flashing with disapproval and dislike, Legolas foremost among them, though his fine clothes were spoiled with seawater. “Curse me if you will. Forsake me. Throw me back in the sea, for it would be a mercy to die now if you are yet resolved to go on. But let me tell you first that I was wrong.”

He reached to clasp Legolas’s hand, which lay stiff and unyielding in his. Trembling, Gimli drew it to his lips and pressed the most ardent of aching kisses to its palm, to its long fingers—to the bowman’s calluses, to the fine fingertips. The ache of his heart choked him so that he might not speak. He might only know this last touch of his One, and cherish it at last as it deserved.

“We will put you back in your boat and you must seek the shore,” Legolas said. His voice shook-- with anger, Gimli could only think, anger that he deserved. He had not meant this to come so late-- had not meant to beg Legolas’s ear when the elf drew already so near to his perceived salvation. But he could not turn back now, not after all he had sacrificed, not after all he had realized.

“Wait,” Gimli said. “If nothing else, give me the chance to speak my heart to you. I do not deserve your mercy, but I would not have you leave without knowing.” Still he did not have the words he sought; it was not only the ring of disapproving elves that stole his speech, but the sight of the burning grief in Legolas’s eyes, the warmth of the hand that still trembled in his own-- Legolas had not drawn it away. “I will not hinder you if you wish to go, after you have heard what I have to say. But I will not stop trying to tell you. If you return me to my boat, I will only follow you again, as best I might, be that steering or swimming-- for I cannot abandon my errand until I have fulfilled it.”

“Then speak,” Legolas said, and he pulled his hand free at last, clutching it in his other and staring down at Gimli as though the sight pained him. His body was held stiff and upright, as though braced by steel rods, his hair plastered to his skull and his clothing to his body-- and he was beautiful, the sight of him stealing Gimli’s words and breath together. “Speak, so that we may send you back to shore and you may cease to torment me with your presence!”

Gimli hung his head. “I have been a torment to you, I know,” he said. “I have wounded you again and again through my foolishness, my reluctance, my inability to recognize true beauty and worth when I held it.” He would have reached for Legolas’s hand again, but he did not dare touch him. “I can offer no excuse for the pain I caused you; only that I did not know what love was until it slipped through my fingers. I can only pray that I have not lost it forever.”

The words had been so long a mystery to him, so late in coming, that it was near impossible to force them out, and he could not look at Legolas as he said them, heat rushing into his cheeks even as the night air sliced at his sodden clothing and sent shivers up and down his body. “I could not let you leave without telling you that I,” he swallowed, and went to his knees, still not trusting himself to look up, “I love you, Legolas. For whatever that is worth, after all I have done.” He raised his head at last, desperate with fading hope.

Legolas looked on him a long moment without expression, and the elves seemed not to draw breath, so still were they.

“The Lady of Lothlórien no longer holds your heart?” he said at length, ignoring the gasps that greeted his words.

“I have cast away her gift,” Gimli said, his heart in his throat. “It matters nothing to me if you are gone.”

Legolas tilted his head. “Catch his boat and bring it alongside.”

Gimli bowed his head, overwhelmed with grief-- he was to be set aside, then: put off the ship and left to do what he would. All his realizations and all his sacrifices had come too late-- the harm was done, and could not be healed.

In silence, the other elves on the ship did as they were bidden-- perhaps in obedience to a prince, perhaps out of a desire to watch the full spectacle as Gimli was cast away. He spared a thought to wonder if he would even manage the journey back to shore, but he could not muster up enough care to worry.

Gimli watched numbly as the ship drew level to the craft he had abandoned, and one of the elves, slender and nimble, climbed down the same rope that had hauled Gimli aboard to drop into Gimli’s boat and draw it near to the large ship, tying the end of the rope to the railing so that the two were fastened together. All the while Legolas did not speak, and Gimli did not dare to press him. Legolas had made his decision, and it was for him to live with the consequences.

“Do you know how to steer?” Legolas asked at last, when all was ready.

“I will learn,” said Gimli miserably. He would learn, or he would spend the rest of the night and all the days to come circling alone in the water, and at the moment he could see no difference between the two choices.

“I will come with you,” Legolas said at last. “I will ensure that you reach the shore safely.”

“Your highness--” One of the other elves spoke up at last, frowning. “We have done much already for you, but we have been delayed for long enough. We cannot wait any longer for you before setting our course.”

Legolas drew in a long breath and held it for a time without speaking. Then he said, “I know.”

Gimli clung awkwardly to a knot in the rope as elves lowered him into his boat, and Legolas sprang lightly down at his side. He was still soaking wet, and it pained Gimli to see it-- he lifted his own forsaken cloak and went to drape it over the elf’s shoulders-- but Legolas would not stoop. Instead he looked at Gimli and the faintest flicker of a smile curved his mouth.

“Keep it,” he said. “I do not feel the cold. But you are shaking, my friend. Your hands will barely work.” Legolas sat and took up the oars.

“Tarry with me,” Gimli said, dry-mouthed. “Tarry a while only. Give me the chance to prove the truth of my words-- at least stay until another ship is built. I will prove myself to you.”

Legolas glanced at him sidelong-- their gazes only brushed before Legolas turned his eyes away again, but Gimli could still make out the traces of that smile.

“It seems I have no other option but to tarry,” he said wryly. “As I lack the skill to build my own ship.”

Gimli looked down. “I would have made it to shore,” he said lamely. “You need not have given up your chance to leave-- or, I would not have you leave, but only--” He stumbled into silence, unsure what he wished to say.

“And yet,” said Legolas softly, “perhaps I would not yet give up my chance to stay.” Again that brief, darting glance, as though he dared not meet Gimli’s eyes for too long. “Not if I truly have something to keep me here.”

Gimli nodded, sagging with relief. “Arod will be nearly as glad to hear it as I,” he said gruffly. “He has sought you as well, and endured much hardship along the way.” He cast about for his clothing, gathering it and preparing to put it on-- until his hand fell on the tunic where the Lady’s gift was kept.

He pulled it out and weighed it in his hand, then drew his arm back to fling it into the sea-- but Legolas stopped him, dropping the oars to catch his wrist.

“Nay,” he said softly. “I will not ask that you destroy your gift. It is enough to know that you left it behind in your quest to come to me.”

Gimli closed his hand about the little pouch. “We owe her much,” he said softly. “From the first she warned me that I should set my axe to the right tree. Now at last I know what her riddle meant, and I would never seek to hew wood elsewhere again.”

Legolas let that lie for a time, rowing steadily and wordlessly. There was no sound for long moments but the gentle splash of the oars and the lapping of water against the side of the boat. The sky was beginning to lighten, the deep grey of early dawn fading into pale blue with streaks of dusky pink, the crescent of the moon still visible when Gimli glanced behind. He let the silence lie, not daring to speak up, drinking in the glory of his new hope.

“Gimli,” said Legolas tentatively, “though I would not dishonor all you have done to reach me, I confess that I cannot promise all you might desire. I hardly dare to believe you have come, and I know not how long it will take me to trust that you mean what you say.”

“I know,” said Gimli, but even the thought that Legolas might one day come to trust him fully once more was greater fortune than he had thought to warrant. “I will wait for as long as you ask of me, and count myself lucky for every day I may spend in your presence—knowing now what a treasure it is.”

Carefully, ready at any moment to withdraw, he laid a hand on Legolas’s wrist.

Legolas did not push him away. He turned, instead, to give Gimli another sliver of that cautious smile.

And together they rowed east towards the docks, into the rising sun.


	23. Chapter 23

**\------TRANSLATION NOTE------**

Eomer's poem is an Anglo-Saxon poem called _Wulf and Eadwacer_. A translation may be found at <http://www.thehypertexts.com/Wulf%20and%20Eadwacer%20Translation.htm> .  
The translation is by Michael Burch. It goes line by line and includes both a transliterated and poetic interpretations.

Lēodum is mīnum swylce him mon lāc gife;  
People/tribe is mine as-if him one like gift;  
[To] my people, he is like a gift/bloodgift/sacrifice/offering/sacrificial gift/blood offering/game/sport/bloodsport.  
To my people he's a bloodgift [owed to the gods].  
To my people he's prey, a sacrificial gift.

willað hý hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.  
will they him devour if he on force comes.  
They will devour/consume/feast on/slaughter/destroy/rape/mate with/serve/offer him if he comes to/approaches their force/troop/clan/pack/company. (Here, āþecgan may have sexual undertones.)  
They will offer him up [to the gods, as a meal, in return for food for the clan to eat], if he approaches their pack.

Ungelīc is ūs.  
Otherwise is us.  
We are unalike/otherwise/different. / It is otherwise with us. / It is not like that with us.  
We are so different.

Wulf is on īege, ic on ōþerre.  
Wulf is on island, I on other.  
Wulf is on one island, I on another.  
Wulf's on one island, I'm on another.

Fæst is þæt ēglond, fenne biworpen.  
Fast is that island, fen/swamp surrounded.  
That island is fast/a fortress, surrounded by fens.  
His island's a secure fortress, surrounded and protected by fens.

Sindon wælrēowe weras þaer on īge;  
They-are slaughter-cruel men there on island;  
There are slaughter-cruel/fierce/bloodthirsty men there on the island. [It is not completely clear which island is meant, but it sounds like the speaker's island.]  
Fierce, bloodthirsty men roam this island.

willað hý hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.  
will they him devour if he on force comes.  
They will devour/slaughter/destroy/serve/offer him if he comes onto their force/troop/clan/pack/stronghold/fortress.  
They will offer him up, if he approaches their pack.

Ungelīc is ūs.  
Otherwise is us.  
We are unalike/otherwise/different.  
We are so different.

Wulfes ic mīnes wīdlāstum wēnum dogode,  
Wulf in my wide-journey hopes dogged.  
I dogged/hounded Wulf in my wide-ranging hopes/thoughts/dreams. / My hopes/dreams/thoughts dogged Wulf in his wide-wanderings.  
My hopes dogged Wulf like wide-ranging hounds. / I waited for my Wolf with dogged longings.

þonne hit wæs rēnig weder ond ic rēotugu sæt,  
when it was rainy weather and I wailing sat, / whenever it rained and I sat weeping/wailing/sobbing  
When it was rainy weather and I sat weeping/wailing/sobbing/disconsolate,  
Whenever it rained while I sobbed, disconsolate,

þonne mec se beaducāfa bōgum bilegde,  
then me the battle-strong arms/forequarters/paws enclosed, / when the battle-bold arms enclosed me/wrapped me up (Here, bog seems to mean an animal's forelegs or paws, but it can also mean "boughs" or "progeny")  
then the battle-strong arms/paws enclosed me,  
huge, battle-strong arms/paws enclosed me;

wæs mē wyn tō þon, wæs mē hwæþre ēac lāð.  
was me joy to that, was me however also pain. / it was my joy, but also pain/hatred/loathing.  
for me there was pleasure/joy, but also pain/hatred/something loathsome.  
for me there was pleasure, but its end was loathsome.

Wulf, mīn Wulf! wēna mē þīne  
Wulf, my Wulf! hopes me pine / my pining/longings/hopes for you  
Wulf, my Wulf! My hopes/desires/longings/pinings/lust for you  
Wulf, my Wulf! My desire for you

sēoce gedydon, þīne seldcymas,  
sick made, thy seldom-comings / have sickened, your seldom-comings/absences  
have made me sick, your seldom-comings  
has made me sick; your seldom-comings

murnende mōd, nales metelīste.  
troubled mind, not meals-missed. / mourning mind, not meals missed.  
disturbed/troubled/occupied my mind, not the lack of food/meals/meat.  
have troubled my mind, more than missed meat.

Gehýrest þū, Ēadwacer? Uncerne earne hwelp  
Hearest you, Eadwacer? Our wretched whelp  
Hear, Eadwacer? Our wretched/vile/filthy/unwanted whelp / Hear, Property-Watcher/Heaven-Watcher/Wealth-Watcher/Watchdog? The whelp we earned/delivered/produced  
Did you hear, Heaven-Watcher? The whelp we delivered

bireð wulf tō wuda.  
bears wolf to woods.  
Wulf/a wolf now bears/has borne to the woods. / Wulf bears to the woods.  
a wolf now bears to the woods.

Þæt mon ēaþe tōslīteð þætte naefre gesomnad wæs,  
That one easily severs that never united was,  
One easily severs what was never united/secured/bound fast  
One can easily sever what was never one:

uncer giedd geador.  
our song/tale/poem/riddle together.  
our song together.  
our song together.


End file.
